Zero to Max 3: The Cryptarch Vault Incident
by NetRaptor
Summary: When the Red War happens, newly-bonded Zero and Max are stranded deep inside the damaged Tower. In their attempts to find their way out, they run into a Vault thief who is also trying to escape ... and looking for someone to pin his crimes on. Without the Light, Zero and Max must rely on their wits to survive ... or face death together.
1. Chapter 1

Zero

* * *

I didn't expect to get tangled up in another mystery - not that day. It was the best day in the world - the day I finally bonded to my Guardian.

His name was Maximilian Ross, and I'd been crazy about him since I'd investigated him for theft and met his glorious spark, instead. Young guy, blond hair always in his eyes, dying of cancer. We made friends and solved two mysteries together, risking our lives in the process. It took him a long time to warm up to the idea of being a Guardian. Working in the Tower for New Monarchy, he saw a lot of Guardians, and I guess he didn't like them.

His cancer had gone into remission, thanks to a new treatment. Once his strength came back a little, we set a date for bonding - the evening of April 20th. This kind of thing isn't usually so formal, but a bunch of warlocks wanted to observe and take notes about what happened when the Light filled a person's being.

"Why am I always an experiment?" Max asked me that morning, as he put on his red and gold work uniform. "Cancer experiment, Guardian experiment ..."

"They're curious," I replied, spinning my shell in delight. "Most ghosts find their Guardians out in the wild. The bond and resurrection happen at the same time. You and I will bond with no resurrection, so the Light may work differently."

Max paused in buttoning his jacket. "Does it hurt?"

"I don't think so," I said. "It's very fast. One flash of Light and it's done."

He tapped his forehead. "I thought you said there was some neural mumbo jumbo that goes on."

"Neural symbiosis," I replied. "That's our psychic bond. It lets us talk telepathically. Some ghosts can share thoughts with their Guardians. But that takes time. I'm pretty sure it doesn't hurt, either."

Max grunted and combed his hair, which didn't do much. Since he had begun to recover, his hair had grown back thick and unruly. He needed a haircut.

"Why do I feel like we're getting married?" he blurted. "I'm freaking_ terrified,_ here."

"It's a little like that," I admitted. "But at the same time, it's not like that at all. It's not supposed to be romantic - it's supposed to be friendship. A very deep, close friendship, that's all. If you decide to get married down the line, that won't affect you and me."

"Oh Light." He dug his fingers into his hair, then had to comb it again. "I'm jittery enough without thinking about that, too. One thing at a time."

We rode the bus to the Tower, and took the lift up to the plaza. To our surprise, a crowd of warlocks were huddled around the Cryptarch's corner, talking in low voices.

"They're after me already," Max gasped, and stopped dead.

"No," I said. "I don't think they're here for us. Just a second, I'll find out what's up."

I flew across the courtyard to the gathering of robed Guardians, each attended by a ghost.

"Hello," I said to the nearest ghost. "What's going on?"

She turned to me, her expression worried. "Oh, hello, Zero. Someone broke into the high-security Cryptarch vault last night. Something was stolen, but nobody will say what. Apparently it was some dangerous secret the Cryptarchs had locked up."

"Oh wow," I said. "Thanks for the info."

I flew back to Max, who was standing on one foot, looking anxious. When I explained what was going on, he exhaled and calmed down. "Just another crime, then. That's no big deal. Come on, I need to get to work."

He hurried through the Tower toward New Monarchy's shipping booth near the hanger. As we went along, he asked, "What kinds of things do the Cryptarchs keep in their vaults?"

"Golden Age tech that's too dangerous for modern use," I replied. "Weapons. SIVA. Bad things."

"Hmm." Max gazed around at the other humans and Guardians moving around the Tower. "Whatever they stole is out in the open. You think they kept it in the Tower, or took it off-world?"

"It's probably already off-world," I replied. "That'll be fun to deal with as a Guardian."

"Yay me," Max said under his breath.

It was a gray, cloudy morning, and the New Monarchy draperies and carpets were a welcome splash of scarlet. We greeted Executor Hideo, then went to work processing the latest shipping manifests.

It was a strange day. The communications networks were up and down, including the satellites. Messages kept coming through from the Cryptarchs, asking us to please inspect outgoing shipments for contraband. This made extra work for everyone. No contraband was found, either.

And all I wanted was to bond my spark to Max's, which I had wanted from the first time I'd looked into his eyes. Now that he was regaining health, his spark didn't shine through his skin so brightly. When I met him, he was so ill, he looked like an Awoken, with Light gleaming through the pallor of his face. But he looked much more human now, peering intently into his laptop screen, or cracking jokes with coworkers.

Evening finally came. The storm that had been building all day finally hit, with thunder, lightning, and torrential rain. Max tucked me into his jacket and made his way toward the Vanguard building, where our bonding was to take place. I could hear his heart racing. I was a little scared, myself, to tell the truth. I'd looked forward to this for so long - what if I'd made a mistake? The first Guardian I'd found had been full of Darkness and misery. I'd left their spark in the wilds - I couldn't bond myself to a soul like that. We ghosts had horror stories.

Then I gazed into Max's spark, so close by, and saw innocence, and determination, and a dedication to doing right. And I loved him as much as I had the first time I'd seen him.

There was no mistake. Max was the Guardian for me.

We entered the Vanguard building, the wind and rain suddenly cut off. Max pushed back his hood with a breath of relief, then let me out. "Well," he said, forcing a smile. "This is it."

"This is it," I agreed, floating at his left shoulder. "Are you ready?"

"I don't know." He hunched his shoulders and walked into the Vanguard chamber. I went with him.

We were just in time to see Commander Zavala spread his arms and erect a bubble shield in the middle of the room. "Get in the shield!" he bellowed.

When a Titan says that, you obey. Max and I darted forward and entered the bubble. Everyone else in the room made a mad dash for it. At the same time, a rocket impacted on the outside of the Tower in an orange fireball.

For a second, Max and I stared out the great windows, into the storm clouds. Lightning flashed, illuminating the shapes of hundreds of airships - an invasion force.

"Zero," Max whispered. His hands closed around me and he clutched me to his chest. "Zero, what's happening?"

"We're under attack," I said. Then a rocket smashed through the window and impacted directly on Zavala's shield.

* * *

Max

* * *

Zavala's shield took the brunt of the rocket's impact, but it flung him and his shield across the room. My feet left the floor and I flew backward, too. I hit the wall, my head clipping something sharp. Hot pain spread across my scalp. I dropped Zero, caught her before she hit the floor, and stuffed her inside my jacket. Her blue eye had gone dark.

The room was filled with crackling yellow flames and smoke. It stank of a nostril-searing oily smell. People were struggling to their feet, groping for the doors. I grabbed the nearest person - a random guy in a non-Guardian uniform - hauled him to his feet, and tugged him toward the door. We stumbled out into the courtyard, dazed and coughing.

"Get to the secondary hanger!" Zavala was bellowing. "All personnel, evacuate! Guardians, to me!"

The secondary hanger was all the way at the other end of the Tower. For a second, my addled brain couldn't make sense of this order. Then I realized that the primary hanger had taken a direct hit from the rockets.

I still didn't know who was attacking us or why. But I tried to follow orders. I tugged the guy I'd rescued in the right direction. He jerked away from me and ran on ahead. Everyone was running. I tried to run, but Zero threatened to slide out of my jacket. I slowed to a jog and pulled her out, carrying her in both hands. Rain slicked my hair to my head, hitting the cut on my scalp and stinging like mad. Zero was instantly wet, her shell and darkened eye covered in running droplets.

Had the explosion killed her? "Zero!" I called, peering into her eye. But in the confusion of the rain, and more rockets flying overhead, and jumpships taking off to engage the enemy, I couldn't tell. I clutched Zero and hurried on.

I rounded a corner just as one of those rockets found its way into the Tower wall some twenty feet below me. The walkway pitched and buckled under my feet. I tried to leap to safety, but the whole area caved in beneath me. In half a breath, I was plunging downward into darkness, floors and floors down inside the Tower. I hit objects I couldn't see. I was bouncing, grabbing, trying to slow my fall, the breath driven from my lungs. I lost Zero.

I landed hard, and debris landed on top of me. After that, I went away for a while.

* * *

Zero

* * *

I awoke in the dark some time later, in a sea of twisted debris. I slowly picked myself up, spinning my shell into position, checking for damage. Miraculously, my shell was only scratched, not broken. Had I fallen down some shaft when the attack began? What had happened? I was disoriented, and my Light wasn't right - weakened, somehow. Maybe I had damaged my core again.

Max. Where was Max?

I opened my shell, expanding the Light field around my core, in order to search. I sent out a pulse of Light, like radar. Instantly I knew that I was four stories down from the Tower proper. A hole had been punched through the offices in this sector, and the upper levels were on fire.

Down below me, lying very still in the rubble, was Max.

I flew down to him with a cry, igniting my headlight. He lay on his back, his arms still loosely curled around his head, as if protecting himself. His legs were pinned under the remains of a shattered wooden desk and part of a support girder from the ceiling.

For a horrifying second, I thought he was dead. Most ghosts don't mind resurrecting their Guardians. But if Max died and I resurrected him with our bond, it would wipe his memories as the Light came in. I didn't want him wiped - I wanted my Max, the one I had spent so much time with, who had fought for his life against cancer for so long.

"Max," I called frantically, sweeping him with a healing beam that did almost nothing. "Dear Max, please don't be gone!"

His eyelids flickered open, and his head shifted toward me. "Zero," he said thickly, his speech slurred. "You're okay."

"I'm fine, but you're not," I said, peering into his eyes. Concussion. Bleeding. Crushed femurs. "I think the whole Tower fell on you."

"It did," he said slowly. "Hurts."

For a moment, we gazed at each other in silence. Even concussed, Max realized the implications.

He smiled, a little shakily. "We weren't supposed to bond like this. There was going to be a crowd. We were an experiment."

"Do you want me to do it now?" I asked softly. "I can heal you completely."

He shut his eyes and drew a deep breath, as if gathering his nerve. Then he nodded. "Do it, Zero. It can't be worse than this."

I opened my shell and reached for the Light of the Traveler.

It wasn't there.

I closed my shell and opened it again. "Max, I can't sense the Traveler."

His eyes widened. "What's that mean?"

I nearly panicked, floating there. "It means ... I don't think you'll have any Light. It's gone."

"Can you not bond us?"

I reached for my new Guardian protocols. They were still functioning, as well as basic healing. But anything that required more power than that was unavailable.

"I can heal you," I said softly, "but not resurrect you."

"Do what you can," he said, biting his lip. "Please, Zero. It hurts so bad."

I focused my Light on him. I had wanted to bond to his spark so very long. Some days, it had taken all my willpower to resist the bonding instinct. Now I finally did it - melding my spark to his, meshing our minds, giving him access to the Light.

Or I would have, had there been any Light.

Max blinked in the flash. As I closed my shell, he frowned anxiously. "Did it not work?"

"It worked," I replied. Despite not being able to reach the Light, a surge of happiness filled me. I swept him with a healing beam. This time, I knew every atom of his body and how to repair it. I mended the cuts and bruises, the broken bones, the remnants of his cancer, the damage done by the cocktail of drugs he'd been on for years.

Max gasped as he experienced real, effective healing for the first time. Then he struggled and kicked until he had squirmed free of the debris pinning him. He slowly stood up, rubbing his arms and legs. "Zero ... I feel so _strong_! Is that because I'm a Guardian?"

"It's because you're completely well," I said. "Without the Light ... I'm afraid you're still just a human."

"Did something happen to the Traveler?" he asked.

I scanned local transmissions. From radio chatter, I gathered that we were under attack by the Cabal, who had somehow caged the Traveler, mortalizing all Guardians.

I told Max this. He stood there in silence for a long moment, opening and closing his left hand. He hadn't been able to use that hand's full strength in a long time, but I had repaired it for him.

"Well," he said, "I can't do anything about it stranded down here. Guide me out and let's fight." He hesitated and opened both hands. "First, though, come here."

I flew into his hands. He hugged me close, his breath fogging my eye lens. "Can you talk in my head?"

I tried it, reaching for that particular frequency in his brain. "Hello, dear Max. Here I am."

He startled a little, his head jerking back. Then he smiled. "I heard you! Can I talk to you the same way?"

"Maybe not at first," I said. "The symbiosis takes time."

He gazed at me. I sensed him trying to communicate, fumbling around in his mind. He was so cute, such a baby Guardian, not even able to communicate properly yet. Light, I loved him even more.

After a moment, he gave up, shaking his head. "I can't do it. But I'll get it eventually."

"It's all right," I told him, floating out of his hands to take my place at his shoulder. "We've only been bonded a few minutes. Sometimes the symbiosis takes years."

"I don't want it to take years," Max said. He sighed. "Lead on, Zero. We've got to find some stairs."


	2. Chapter 2: Ducts

Max

* * *

Being a Guardian wasn't what I'd expected. I'd thought it would alter my personality or something - all that Light coming with strings attached.

But there was no Light, because the aliens had captured the Traveler. This should have scared me a lot more than it did. Growing up beneath the giant orb, it was just one more piece of scenery. The aliens might as well have captured the nearest mountain. Didn't I owe it my allegiance or something? Other Guardians I'd talked to mentioned the Traveler with awe and reverence. Maybe I just didn't know enough.

So, I had no Light powers, which was sort of a letdown. I'd been looking forward to being able to light things on fire with a touch. The one thing I knew for sure was that Zero had healed me. Oh man, had she healed me. I'd never felt so good in my life. No more cancer, no more drugs, no more scarring in my left arm that weakened my hand so much. I could have run for miles out of sheer joy.

And I wanted to fight. The more I thought about those rockets hitting the Tower, the angrier I felt. If the Tower was wrecked, what had happened to the City? All my friends? Had they evacuated?

Maybe it was the Guardian thing, giving me fighting instincts. Or maybe I'd just been too sick to notice that part of me anymore. But I wanted a weapon in the worst way - a gun, a club, a knife, anything. As Zero led me through the wreckage that had been offices, I helped myself to a metal chair leg. It felt good to have something in my hands. If we met any aliens, I wouldn't be unarmed.

Then there was Zero, guiding me along with her headlight. I could feel her as a spark of warmth nearby, heating my cheek. It had been a shock to hear her little voice in my head, but I wanted her to keep talking there. We were bonded, dammit. I'd traded my freedom for immortality, and gotten gypped in the powers department. The least I could do was listen to Zero in my head and pretend I was a Guardian now.

I tried talking to her inside my head, glancing at her to see if she reacted. Mostly, I just said, "Can you hear me now?" inside my head in different ways. Her voice had come in through what felt like my left ear, but brains never put things where you think they are. I tried aiming my thought-voice in different directions, if that makes sense.

Meanwhile, we picked our way through the Tower's administrative section, which had closed down for the night, then taken a direct hit from a missile. It was a mess of tangled office furniture and paper everywhere.

"Down that hall, over there," Zero said, indicating it with her headlight. "There should be a staircase leading up to the dormitory level."

I scrambled over a collapsed cubicle and reached the hallway. A gust of cold, damp air struck my face. "Zero, is there a window open down here?"

She gave me a worried look. "This section has no windows."

I made my way down the hall. The wind grew stronger. Then we reached the end and saw why.

Another rocket had torn a huge hole in the side of the Tower. The rest of the hallway was gone, like some monster had taken a bite out of the building. On the other side of the wreckage, I spotted the staircase I'd been trying to reach. But the stairwell was completely blocked by rubble. The wind beat into my face, carrying snatches of rain. Beyond Zero's little beam was the vast, impenetrable darkness of the mountains at night.

The floor creaked beneath me. I hurriedly backed away down the hall, to where the building felt more stable. "Well, we can't get out that way."

Zero opened her shell and sent out a pulse of Light. Her little core turned this way and that inside her Light field, her eye blinking thoughtfully.

Funny, I could feel her scanning the area, building a map. I'd never noticed that her Light field made a sound - kind of a bell-like chime. Maybe I could only hear it because she was mine.

That thought filled me with a jealous satisfaction. Zero was mine. Nobody else's. I never had to worry about her finding some other Guardian who was better than me. We were bonded. She was my ghost and I was her Guardian.

"My sweet little girl ghost," I thought. "Mine, mine, all mine."

She turned and looked at me.

Rats. Of course, that had to be the thought she actually heard me think. I glanced at the ceiling and tried to look casual.

"I heard you," she said in my head with a note of amusement. "Feeling a tad possessive?"

"Maybe," I thought.

Zero closed her shell, flew up to my face, and touched her eye to my cheek in a ghost kiss. "Well, you're mine," she whispered. "So don't get uppity."

I leaned my face against her and patted her shell. "I'll have to be careful what I think to you, since you can hear me now."

"Only that highest level of thought in your prefrontal cortex," Zero replied, resuming her usual spot at my shoulder. "Subliminal levels of thought in different areas of your brain are nearly impossible to detect."

"Good, I guess," I said. "At least I still have some privacy inside my head."

She emoted a smile. "Of course you do. I'm not trying to hack your brain, here. We have just enough synergy to work well together." She glanced upward. "Speaking of which, how do you feel about air ducts?"

I didn't like air ducts. The Tower's ducts were huge, big enough for a man to crawl through. Apparently, this aided the airflow in really, really large systems. But they were dusty and claustrophobic, and above all, dark as a Hive lair.

"Only about a hundred feet that way," Zero said, riding on my back as I belly-crawled down the metal duct. Her headlight illuminated the passage ahead of me. "Then take a left, and we should be back in the dormitories. It's easy to reach the upper levels from there."

"You know," I panted, bruising my elbows and knees on the unforgiving metal, "I've heard stories about stuff deep in the Tower. There's cleaning drones with their impurity detection set so high, they kill people."

I felt Zero shiver. "I hope they don't roam the air ducts."

I brushed aside a dust bunny the size of a soccer ball. "No cleaning drone has seen this duct in years." Then I had to stop and have a sneezing fit.

"Most of this dust is made of human skin cells," Zero told me cheerfully. "Essentially, your sinuses are irritated by death."

"_Thanks_ so _much_ for that mental image," I said, wiping my nose.

Her merriment touched my mind like a ray of sunshine. "You freak me out, I freak you out."

"Oh, that's how this is going to play, huh?" I said, crawling on. "How about this: they never caught whoever robbed that Cryptarch vault. And now they probably never will."

"Unless the thief is still down here with us," Zero said. "Because their ship was destroyed in the main hanger, and they're stranded."

This made the hair rise on my neck. But I rolled with it. "Yeah, and they're traveling the ducts, like we are."

Zero's headlight jerked back and forth nervously. Then she laughed. "You're good at this game. I'm getting freaked out."

"You freak out too easily!" I said as I reached a junction. There I halted and peered left and right. Zero aimed her light down first one shaft, then the other. I half-expected to see a black, lumpy shape with glowing red eyes filling one of the ducts. But they were empty of everything but dust as far as we could see.

"Turn left," Zero said, her voice trembling a little. "See?" she added, faking confidence. "We're both good at this game. We've freaked each other out."

The trouble was, the junction also had a vent leading downward. A flexible cover, like a trap door, was closed over it at the moment, and with its coating of dust, it looked like solid metal. As I leaned both elbows on it, maneuvering my body to turn the corner, the trap door gave way beneath my weight. I plunged head first down a vertical shaft, and it was pitch black.

I gasped and tried to catch myself against the sides of the duct, scraping my hands raw in a matter of seconds. Then the duct curved and became a steep slide. I rode down on my belly, feeling the joints in the metal tearing my clothes as I went by. I tried to keep my hands in front of my face, because I was going to hit the end any second-

And wow, did I. There was a vent at the end. I hit it so hard that I tore its screws out of the wall. I crashed out into a room, on top of the vent cover, and lay groaning in the darkness. My arms and hands throbbed with pain.

"Zero," I thought, "I found the bottom. Ow ow. Heals please."

A moment later, Zero's headlight appeared in the duct, flying after me. She emerged from the open vent, playing her light over me, the vent cover, and the rest of the room. I glimpsed a table, some chairs, and a potted plant.

"That was my fault," she said, switching from a headlight to a healing beam. That deep, reassuring warmth washed through me again, mending my torn skin and bruised arms. I could seriously get used to this healing stuff.

Zero went on, "I saw that vertical junction on my scan, but it looked like a solid cover. I should have warned you. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," I groaned, rolling over and climbing to my feet. I was covered in about three inches of fluffy dust. I brushed it off in clouds, coughing. Then I had a chance to look around.

It looked like I'd landed in a break room on a much lower level. The floor was grungy around the two doorways, where people must go in and out all the time. There were a couple of tables with chairs, and a countertop with a sink, microwave, and refrigerator.

I was set to leave, but Zero flew to the fridge and hovered over it. "You should take the food supplies in here. The power's out, and it's a long walk back to the roof."

I opened the fridge and peered inside. There was a case of water bottles and somebody's forgotten lunch bag. I pulled off my coat and used it as a bag to carry the water bottles. "Where are we, anyway?" I asked.

"Floor twelve," Zero replied. "You dropped eight floors in that duct."

"How many floors does the Tower have?"

"Seventy," Zero said. "Not counting the basement levels."

I suddenly had the feeling that I was trapped in an endless rat maze with people randomly shooting at it.

I hoisted my jacket-bag and turned to go, but Zero said, "Take the food, too."

"That's somebody's lunch!" I exclaimed, horrified. "I can't take that!"

Zero gazed at me. "Do you really think they're coming back for it, Max?"

I thought of the rocket hitting Zavala's shields, and everyone running for the transports. I slowly picked up the bag and opened it. It had two sandwiches inside, each with a substantial amount of meat and veggies. They smelled fresh enough. I added the sandwiches to my jacket bag and put the empty lunch bag back. Then I dug out my glimmer synth and left a couple of bits inside the bag. That way, if the owner made it back someday, he'd be compensated for feeding me.

Zero guided me out into the hall, where she opened her shell and scanned. She scanned for a long time. I took the opportunity to open a water bottle and wash the dust out of my mouth.

"Um," Zero said at last. "There's a ton of structural damage between us and the roof. I think we may want to go down, instead. There's exits at ground level we could use. There's also no damage in the lower floors."

"Only fifty-eight floors to go, then," I said with fake cheerfulness. "Lead on, tiny floating flashlight."

Zero gave me a sarcastic look. But she said, "It's two in the morning. Do you want to rest for a while?"

"Do I need to?" I said in surprise. "Come to think of it, do Guardians need to eat and breathe and so on?"

Zero rolled her eye at me. "Some Guardians can sustain themselves entirely in the Light. But for one thing, you're not trained yet, and for another thing, there is no Light. So yes, you still have to eat, sleep, and breathe."

We poked around that floor for a while, looking for someplace comfortable. I was hoping for a nice sofa, or maybe a cushy armchair. But this floor was some kind of maintenance level - lots of tools and supplies, access closets to the wiring and water pipes, that sort of thing.

We wound up back in the break room. I collected all the chairs and pushed them together to make a somewhat padded platform. It wasn't very comfortable, but it was better than the floor.

I made a nest for Zero in my jacket, under my arm. She nestled down against my ribs, in the crook of my elbow. Her shell poked me, but I didn't care. She was mine, now, and no enemy was going to sneak out of the dark and steal her away.

I tried to sleep. I probably dozed a bit. But you know how it is, sleeping in a strange place - you jut can't relax. Any small noise sounds like a threat. And because of the pipes and ducts all over this level, there were a ton of weird sounds - groans, sharp pings, hisses, ticking sounds, you name it.

I found that I didn't like that open vent across the room - the one I had slid down and broken open. Anything could come down that vent in the dark. I turned my head to keep an eye on it - not that I could see anything in the pitch blackness. But I sensed the vent was there. I imagined I could feel the air flowing out of it, even though the air wasn't running. Maybe the air was being stirred by something - something formless creeping down from the upper floors ...

I must have dozed at some point, because suddenly there was an eye near the vent. A single glowing red eye, focusing on me. A Vex goblin! I made out the fan-shaped head, the copper head, the neck of wires and gears, the faint mechanical whirr of its internal workings.

I leaped up with a yell and clobbered it with a chair.

When I woke up for real, I was standing, holding another chair, and Zero was saying, "Max! Wake up!" Her headlight was on, illuminating the room. I really had thrown a chair, and I really had hit something. Its legs protruded from beneath the chair - robot legs.

"It was a Vex!" I gasped, gripping the chair tighter. "Did I kill it?"

"There are no Vex in the Tower!" Zero exclaimed. "It was a cleaning frame!"

Frames were the humanoid robots the Vanguard used for menial tasks around the Tower. I stepped around the toppled chair and looked at it. Sure enough, it had the narrow, rectangular head and square eye, all arranged quite differently from a Vex robot. The eye was dark, now, the head almost completely detached from the neck. Beside it lay a strange, dome-shaped helmet and a broom.

Zero scanned the frame's head. "It was following its cleaning schedule to sweep this room. It does it every morning at five."

I set the chair down, feeling uncommonly silly. I apologetically lifted the other chair off the frame and set it back with the others. "Guess I was having a nightmare. I didn't sleep very well."

"I know," Zero said.

Oh yeah, she was linked to my brain now. She'd know all about my sleeping patterns. I glanced into her blue eye. "Did I keep you up?"

"It's not that," she said, looking down. "It's just that a lot of the neural symbiosis happens while we're both sleeping. If we don't sleep, it won't form the neural pathways as well."

That made sense. It also made me feel guilty, on top of being embarrassed. "I don't know if I'm cut out for this Guardian stuff." I suddenly wanted out of there, out of that room and floor and Tower. I loaded my supplies into my jacket and wolfed a sandwich.

Zero examined the fallen robot again. "Did you see this helmet?" she called.

I walked over and looked. The helmet was meant for a human head, not a frame's skinny facsimile. It had an opaque glass dome over the face and forehead area. The glass swirled slowly with a foggy, cloud-like material beneath the glass.

"How does anybody expect to see through this?" I said, and put it on.

The first thing I noticed was that I could see through the glass from the inside. Zero appeared as a bright spark of Light. The appliances in the room sparked with a little residual electricity that the helmet let me see. When I looked at my hands, they glowed a faint red.

Then I blinked.

The view changed. Now I was holding Zero, and her spark was flickering as it died.

I blinked again.

An empty stairwell led downward, choked and narrow because of a pipeline that formed its north wall. Light gleamed from below.

I blinked.

A man in black was advancing on me with a knife.

I tore the helmet off and stood holding it, panting. I was still in the break room, and Zero still floated nearby, watching me. She wasn't dying. There was no assassin with a knife. And there was no stairwell.

"Max?" Zero asked.

"This helmet," I gasped. "It gave me visions or something." I told Zero what I had seen.

She flew up and scanned the helmet again, her beam reflecting off the clouded glass. "Look," she said, indicating a tiny sticker on the side. "This is an inventory tag for the Cryptarch vaults."

"What's that mean?" I said, not sure whether to keep the helmet or throw it across the room.

"It means," said Zero slowly, as if thinking aloud, "that this frame was in a vault and put on this helmet for some reason. Then it wore it up here."

I stared at her. "You think it was stolen from the one vault? Was this helmet the thing that was missing?" I laughed. "And all the time, a cleaning frame has been walking around with it?"

Zero laughed a little, too. "You'd think someone would have noticed! This helmet's pretty unique. It's called the Eye of Another World, and it's designed for warlocks." She gave me an intent look. "Do you think you're a warlock?"

"How should I know?" I said. "The Light's out. So, um. Are you feeling all right? Not, like ... dying or anything?"

"I'm fine," Zero replied. "Maybe the helmet showed you possibilities. You know, the way the Vex comb through possible timelines to find the most ideal ones for their schemes."

I had dreamed the robot wearing the helmet was a Vex. That was kind of creepy. I suppressed a shudder. "Well ... if that's true, then there's a possibility of a dude running around with a knife. And also some staircase with light at the bottom. So ... let's look around. Scan for creeping knife men."

Was the helmet trustworthy, then? I'd heard about artifacts Guardians had found that whispered to you, or tried to take over your mind. Anything alien-related was usually bad news. So, what was this helmet? Where had it come from? Was it showing me stuff that would really happen, or was it screwing with me to change my behavior for its own ends? Either option sent goosebumps creeping over my skin.

Worse than the danger it showed was the vision of Zero dying. The very thought of it sent me into stuttering horrors inside my mind. I was the one who had been dying, not her. She had been my steadfast friend for months, looking out for me, making sure I ate and drank enough, covering for me on the bad days. And now that she was finally mine, I might lose her to this stupid caged Traveler nonsense.

Well, the helmet had also showed me where to find Light. If that's what Zero needed, then I would comb this Tower until we found it.

I added the helmet to my jacket bag. Zero hovered so close to my shoulder, her shell brushed my ear. We set off in search of that staircase.


	3. Chapter 3: Ragnar

Zero

* * *

I didn't like that the helmet had shown Max a vision of me with my Light burning out. First, why show him visions at all? There was no Light. Second ... well, my Light hadn't been right since I'd awakened in the rubble of the Tower. Every time I healed Max, it tired me in a way that it never should have. My connection with the Traveler - a constant, warm presence that I took for granted, like sunlight - was gone. I felt like the universe had entered deepest midnight. It would always be midnight now. I was cold. The only other Light I had was Max's warm, glorious spark.

We roamed around the maintenance floor again. I had partially mapped it the first time around. This time, I was able to guide Max to the places we hadn't yet seen. One of them was a narrow staircase that followed a lot of piping down to the next floors.

Max halted at the top of the stairs. He pulled out the helmet and put it on.

"Is that a good idea?" I asked.

He stood there without answering, his face obscured by the cloudy glass. His head turned this way and that, looking at things I couldn't see. Then he pulled it off and stashed it in his bag. "The helmet lets me see Light," he explained. "You're a bright little star, for instance."

I emoted a smile.

He grinned. "Anyway, there's a ton of Light downstairs. Want to find out what it is?"

"As long as there's no knife men," I said. We had recently seen a ghost stabbed to death, and I had no desire to experience that.

Max's mouth twitched. He glanced over his shoulder. "Let's head downstairs."

He descended the stairs on the balls of his feet, his sneakers making little sound. I flew at his shoulder, keeping my passive scans going. "Is this more of the freak-out game?" I asked inside his head. "Because you're winning."

After a moment, his thought-voice came through, faintly. "The helmet shows probabilities, right? Three probabilities without him, and one with him. I don't know which one we're on. I think he'll find us if we stay in one place too long."

Max was learning to use that helmet awfully quickly. He was a Guardian with an affinity to the Light, after all. And that helmet, the Eye of Another World, was classified as a Light artifact. But how accurate were the visions? My scans detected no living things but us.

My Max might be a warlock. The idea thrilled me. Any Guardian class thrilled me, really, but owing to Max's smaller size, I figured he'd be a warlock or a hunter. And here he was, using a warlock helmet like a champ. My core swelled a little with pride.

_Zero is all you'll ever b_e, another ghost had taunted me._ Zero Guardian. Zero point to your life._

I mentally flipped her off. _I have my Guardian now, Priscilla. And he's more wonderful than you could ever imagine._

The stairs led us down several floors. At each landing, Max put on the helmet and looked around. Five floors down, he turned to the door on the landing. "This is where the Light is coming from."

It was locked, of course. I unlocked it for him. It was a standard tumbler set, nothing fancy.

On the other side of the door was a big, echoing room. Some kind of meeting room, I thought, owing to a raised podium at one end. Max checked the area with his helmet. Then he jerked it off again. "The visions have changed," he whispered. "Stay close, Zero." He made a beeline for a door on the opposite end of the room.

"What did you see?" I asked in his head. If only I could see his visions, too. But we hadn't been bonded long enough for him to transmit images to me. Lots of ghosts and Guardians never reached that stage. Rumor had it that Ikora and her ghost Ophiuchus could share thought-images, but I certainly had no plans to ask them.

The door at the far end was unlocked. Max opened it and peered through. Beyond it was a metal walkway suspended over darkness. Max tested it with one foot before committing his full weight. I illuminated it with my headlight.

As we made our way along the walkway, I suddenly realized what Max had been talking about when he said he was tracking Light. I sensed it, too, coming from somewhere to our left, below the walkway. It was as if I had wandered through the midnight universe and encountered a warmly-lit doorway.

"I feel Light," I said in his head.

"That's what I'm trying to reach," he replied. "The helmet showed us crossing this walkway and taking this spiral tunnel downward. There's a funky place down there where the Light is."

"Any assassins?"

I felt Max's hesitation. "In one probability, yes. Mainly, we just need to get there."

"Why?" I asked. "It's just some Light artifact, isn't it? It can't do us any good with the Traveler caged."

Max's footsteps slowed. He gave me a look, and I suddenly felt his sadness and desperation. "Look, Zero. I'm a Guardian. But I've never felt the Light. I want to feel it, even if it's only one time, okay?" He drew a breath, as if to say more, but shut his mouth.

I understood his logic, but not his desperation. What had he seen through that helmet that had changed his focus so drastically?

I uneasily touched my own weakening Light. It was already dimmer than it had been yesterday. What if he was seeing me die?

By the Traveler, I had no intention of dying. Ghosts had survived for years in Darkness zones, cut off from the Light. I would not be proven weaker than my brothers and sisters in their courageous quests for their Guardians. Not when I had finally bonded to my beloved Max.

We crossed the walkway, Max walking cat-footed, trying not to make any unnecessary sounds. We reached the spiral staircase he had mentioned. There was an iron gate halfway down that demanded an ID card. I hacked it carefully, bypassing the security functions, and succeeded in unlocking the gate. Max propped it open with a water bottle, and we descended the rest of the way.

The Light grew more potent as we descended. When we entered an anteroom at the bottom of the stairs with another keycard door, I wanted to cry with frustration. The Light was so warm, so compelling and attractive. I almost thought that whatever lay beyond this door would replenish my own lagging reserves. Part of my mind kept wanting to argue that this was nonsense, that only the Traveler could do that. I had to ignore this thought and concentrate on running another hack.

The security on this door was stronger. The hack proved to be delicate work, injecting code and praying it set off no alarms. With the power off, the locks were running on batteries, so it was anyone's guess if the security systems were still functioning. I didn't want to find out.

The lock protested my efforts, but I finally persuaded it to open. The door clicked and Max opened it.

Beyond it was a laboratory filled with computers and strange machines. It was lit by a soft blue light, like sunlight seen through water. The sense of Light hit me so powerfully, I staggered in midair.

"Oh," Max gasped. He cupped a hand under me, and we walked forward.

In the middle of the lab was a large table. Lying on this table was a five-foot-long chunk of something like white stone with bits of metal on one side. It radiated both Light and the blue glow. Sensors were stuck all over it, with wires leading to various machines nearby.

"What is this?" Max breathed.

"It's a piece of the Traveler," I replied reverently. I flew around it, scanning it. The table had a large Cryptarch ID sticker on it, which I read. "This says it was recovered from the Hive, who were using it to drain the Traveler's Light. They've been studying it ever since."

I turned to Max. He was watching me closely. "Well?" he said. "Go on and do the thing."

"What thing?" I asked.

He touched the fragment with a fingertip. "Where you recharge your Light. I saw it in a vision. You need it, right?"

I looked at the fragment, at a complete loss. The Light beckoned to me, but it was ... inaccessible, somehow. I scanned it, but the frequency wasn't compatible with my own Light. As much as I craved it, I couldn't use it. But I had to put on a brave face for my Guardian.

"There's Light here, but ... I don't know how to reach it. And I'm fine, Max. Just a little tired from healing your butt all the time."

He held out a hand and I flew to him. He gazed into my eye and stroked my shell. "You're sure?"

For a second I felt what he was feeling - deeply troubled and concerned. "I'm all right," I told him softly. "Ghosts put up with fatigue all the time. I'll get stronger. We haven't been bonded long, that's all."

He glanced at the helmet in his jacket bag. Then he reached out and pressed a hand to the Traveler fragment. "It doesn't do anything for me, either," he muttered. "I can feel the Light, but I can't use it."

I was about to respond with something comforting. But at that moment, the gate back up the stairs shut with an echoing clang.

Max and I both jumped. "Oh no," Max whispered, staring toward the lab door and going pale. "Not this probability." He dashed across the room and shut it. The electronic lock snapped into place. Then he ran back, put on the helmet, and turned in place, using its Eye.

"There's no other doors," I pointed out. "We're trapped."

"No, we're not," Max said, pulling off the helmet and jamming it in his bag. He hurried to the end of the room, knelt, and ran his fingers over the smooth floor. He found a small divot and hooked a finger into it. To my surprise, he pulled open a trap door that had been all but invisible a second before. Beneath, a narrow staircase led downward into darkness.

He ran back to grab his jacket bag, then beckoned to me. I flew to his shoulder, and together we descended the stairs.

Behind us, the lab door lock buzzed as someone tried to open it.

Max pulled the trap door shut. I ignited my headlight, and he ran down the stairs as fast as he could. They were only two feet wide. He had to turn a little sideways as he descended.

"Was that the knife man?" I asked in his head.

"Yeah," he replied the same way. "I think he wants the Eye helmet. Maybe we were right and he's the thief, and he's stuck here in the Tower."

"But why was the helmet on a cleaning frame?" I asked. "It makes no sense."

"The helmet only shows me future stuff, not the past," Max replied. "I don't know. But according to what it showed me, these stairs lead down to a vault. There's a ton of weapons and doors and stuff. We can grab a gun and escape. Find the stairs and get out of this stupid building."

"But then we have to deal with the Cabal invaders," I pointed out.

Max made a snarling sound. "I can take them."

I didn't doubt my Guardian's courage. But he had had no training and we weren't even sure of his class discipline. If my sweet Guardian was cut down in front of me, I'd lose my mind with grief.

Together, we descended into the Cryptarch vault.

* * *

Max

* * *

I thought being a Guardian meant I wouldn't ever be scared anymore.

I mean, Guardians can be resurrected over and over. Some of them blow themselves up to destroy their enemies and come back laughing about it. Their ghosts can heal any wound or sickness. A lot of them are rolling in glimmer because of so many successful missions. They loot our enemies constantly. When Commander Zavala told the Guardians to _be brave_, I thought it was a motivational nothing. You know, on level with _believe in yourself_ or _stay strong_. It sounds good, but it doesn't mean anything. Guardians have no fear.

At least, that's what I'd always thought. Here I was, a Guardian, but if I died, I'd stay dead. Being hurt was slowly killing Zero as she tried to heal me. I had no powers, nothing but a helmet that showed me unreliable visions.

Except for the knife man chasing me. I still didn't know why he was after me, except that maybe he wanted the helmet.

So as I ran down those secret stairs, I felt my heart lifting my shirt in panic. I had trained with a handgun for years, but I didn't know how to fight hand to hand. I had a metal chair leg stuck through my belt, but what good was that against a knife? I had no gun. My vague hope was that the vault would have guns in it. And hopefully ammo. Without ammo, a gun's just a fancy club.

After four or five flights, we reached the bottom of the stairs. A locked door greeted us - the kind of thick steel door like on a bank vault. Zero made short work of it. "Not my best hack job," she said inside my head. "But the alarms have no power, so it doesn't matter, anyway."

I heaved the door open and stepped into vast, echoing darkness. Zero shone her light around. It illuminated huge carved pillars in rows, a marble floor, and displays like in a museum. Rows and rows of glass-fronted shelves, rows of free-standing cases like coffins. Some of them were roped off with caution signs around them. It was chilly and dusty, and smelled incongruously of air freshener.

I reached for the Eye of Another World.

"I dread every time you put that thing on," Zero said softly. "It's controlling you."

I bit my lip in nervousness at this. I had certainly based all my recent decisions on the visions it had showed me. But it had also kept us a couple of steps ahead of the knife-man.

Refusing to admit that I had yet to lay eyes on the actual knife man, I pulled on the helmet.

The displays blazed with Light. Some of them looked like they were on fire. But down at the other end of the room, Darkness hung like a thick, black fog. I gazed at it in horror. I hadn't yet seen Darkness through this helmet. When you're a civilian in the Tower, you see Guardians use Light all the time - practicing powers, making little constructs, or just calling flickers to their hands for fun. The Darkness is just this kind of distant thing that people talk about. I mean, we've seen Fallen attack the walls. We've watched news reports about Taken and Vex. Cabal had attacked the Tower and City. But the Darkness was this intangible thing that only Guardians dealt with.

But here it was, filling the far end of the room. As I stared at it, it rolled a little, like a bank of fog when a breeze passes through it. The Darkness took on nebulous, half-imagined shapes that I could almost grasp - yet if I grasped them, I'd lose my mind with fear. I was suddenly aware that I had no Light. No protection.

Why was such thick Darkness allowed inside the Tower? I had worked above this threat for years, never suspecting what lay beneath my feet.

I forced myself to blink and look away from the horror that had devoured so much of humanity.

The vision changed. I saw myself, crouching behind one of the displays with a strange-looking hand cannon. The silhouette of the knife-man crept toward my hiding place.

I blinked.

The same scenario in reverse - I was the one creeping up on the hiding knife-man. He held the same weapon I'd been carrying.

I pulled off the helmet. "Right. We need to find a gun. And don't go to the far end of this room."

Zero made an affirmative beep.

I walked up to the first display that had burned with Light and looked in. Inside was a sleek, silver rifle - not the one I had seen. I hurried to the next. A short, stubby grenade launcher.

"Zero, any sign of pursuit?"

"They're on the other side of the vault door," she said in my head, her voice soft with apprehension. "Their ghost is using my hack to get through."

"They have a ghost? Are they a Guardian?"

"I think so."

Her feelings touched mine for a moment - like a gulf of churning water. She was terrified for us both.

"Go invisible," I told her. "Stay out of sight."

She vanished in a swirl of blue particles. "Hurry, Max," she whispered in my head.

I dashed from display to display, looking for the strange-looking gun I'd seen in the Eye. It wasn't in the box that was roped off - that one had veins of red slime growing all over it. I didn't want to think about touching it.

I found a machine gun, two fusion rifles, and a weird-looking wheel thing that might have been a gun. As I reluctantly neared the Darkness cloud, I found it - a hand cannon with a knife welded to its barrel. It was splattered with a rusty red substance that I hoped wasn't blood.

"Zero," I thought, motioning to the lock on the case.

She appeared and hit it with her magical door-unlocking beam. The lock began to click.

Behind me, the heavy vault door also clicked as its lock disengaged.

"Hurry," I breathed.

Zero spun her shell and hurried. The case's lock opened. She disappeared at once. I opened the lid, snatched out the hand cannon, then ducked behind the nearest display case. I opened the chamber and squinted into it. Empty. Well, at least it had the knife on it. I could stab the knife-man with a knife gun.

"I need ammo," I thought to Zero.

Her voice was a gasp in my head. "No ammo in this room. Through the Darkness - another hallway. Down there."

I should have bolted right then. But I wanted to see my pursuer with my own eyes, and not just the Eye. So I waited and peeked.

The vault door swung open a crack and halted. The person beyond it stood still, gazing into the room for a long moment. They were expecting me to jump them? Good. Maybe I came off as more of a threat than I thought, somehow.

The door swung open all the way, and the knife-man slipped into the room. He was a Hunter with a cloak and leather armor. He carried that knife in one hand - a twelve-inch Hunter's knife with the backward hook for tearing flesh. I could only see him because his ghost floated at his shoulder, swinging a headlight around, the way Zero did.

The headlight pointed directly at my hiding place.

The hunter tensed and slipped behind a pillar. "I know you're there," he said. "Show yourself."

"And what?" I replied. "Let you throw your knife through my face?"

He chuckled - a tense sort of chuckle. "Tempting. But you have the Eye. You know what I'll do next."

True, I had the helmet, but I wasn't wearing it. I considered putting it on, but blinking through visions would take time. The Hunter would have a chance to jump me.

I bluffed, instead. "You bet I do. You'd better not move or I'll blow your head off."

He peeked around the pillar, but otherwise didn't move. I peeked around the display case at the same time and he saw me.

"Wait," he said. "You're the wrong one."

"What?" I said.

"You're the kid in the jacket and jeans," the Hunter said. "I saw you in the Eye. Where's the other?"

"I've only seen you in the Eye," I replied. But suddenly I had doubts. The person I'd seen in the Eye hadn't worn a cloak. They were in a black bodysuit thing, like a helicopter pilot.

"You're barely a Guardian," said the Hunter. "You don't even have the gear. And without the Light, it doesn't matter, anyway." He hesitated. "Truce?"

"First," I demanded, "why are you hunting me?"

"I thought I was hunting the other," said the Hunter. "The one in black. Truce, and we hunt him together."

"Why hunt him?" I hedged. "I just want out of this Tower."

"Because he robbed this vault to begin with," the Hunter said with exaggerated patience. "I was tracking him with the Eye when the Traveler was taken. By the time I regained my bearings, someone had taken the Eye and the thief was hidden deep."

"A cleaning frame picked up the helmet," I said with a laugh. "That's how I got it."

"A frame?" said the Hunter in disbelief. "It must have picked it up while I was out. Didn't you have problems when the Light went out?"

"I wasn't a Guardian, then," I said. "Look, put down your knife, and I'll put down my gun. Truce."

The Hunter sheathed his knife with one smooth, practiced motion. I carefully laid my knife-gun on the floor. We slowly stepped into full view of the other, holding out our empty hands.

The Hunter was a human who looked my age but was probably much older. He had the kind of scraggly hair and scruffy beard that said he hadn't seen a mirror in weeks and didn't care. His eyes were dark brown, like a falcon's. He studied me like I was a mouse he was thinking of tearing up.

"I'm Maximilian Ross," I said, extending a hand and cautiously stepping forward.

"Ragnar," he replied. He stepped forward and we shook hands. His grip was so firm, I thought he was threatening to break my fingers.

"So, Maximilian Ross," Ragnar said, "where's the Eye?"

"Over here," I said. I didn't want to show it to him or let him take it back. I _needed_ it.

He stepped past me, searching. Before I could say anything, he found my jacket bag behind the display cabinet and snatched the helmet out of it. He grabbed a water bottle, too. "Do you mind?"

"Take the water," I said. "Give me back the helmet."

"I need to use it for a minute," Ragnar replied, and jammed it on his head.

His face disappeared behind the cloudy glass. I suddenly realized why Zero protested whenever I wore it. It looked alien and wrong. Ragnar stood there, his head turning back and forth, and it looked plain creepy - like a blind animal trying to see.

He breathed a curse and pulled the helmet off. He handed it to me. "Tell me what visions it gives you."

I slowly put the helmet on, glancing at Ragnar's hair and thinking about lice. Of all the stupid things to worry about, right? I didn't like him using my helmet, not when I needed it.

Once it was on my head, though, I felt better. The displays still blazed with Light. The cloud of Darkness still hung at the far end of the room, obscuring the doorway behind it. This time, I realized that the Darkness was hanging around a couple of locked displays at that end. There must be some sick weapons down there. Ragnar glowed a faint red, the way I did. Both our ghosts were bright sparks, although Zero wasn't as bright as Ragnar's. This bothered me.

But I was supposed to have visions, so I blinked.

Ragnar jabbed me with his knife. I reeled backward and collapsed to the floor, holding my stomach.

Blink.

An army of Tower robots, all jury-rigged with glowing white tubing, coming after me with hands extended, zombie-like.

Blink.

The knife-man in black aiming a rifle at Ragnar and me. White tubing was wrapped around the stock and barrel. When he fired, Ragnar's right arm vanished.

I pulled off the helmet, feeling sick.


	4. Chapter 4: Armor

"Well?" said Ragnar, draining the water bottle. "What'd you see?"

_That you're a filthy double-crosser,_ I wanted to say. Instead, I said, "The guy in the black suit has this gun with white stuff all over it. And a bunch of aggressive frames."

Ragnar nodded, satisfied. "I saw the same things. Always have to corroborate things when it comes to the Eye. Usually my fireteam does it, but ..." He trailed off and looked away.

I wondered darkly if his team was off fighting the Cabal, or if he had murdered them, the way he wanted to murder me.

"This way," Ragnar said, and charged into the Darkness cloud. I picked up my jacket bag, and tucked the hand cannon with the knife into my belt. And I followed, cautiously.

Not being able to see the Darkness cloud, I wasn't sure when we entered it. But I suddenly felt cold inside, like I'd swallowed ice. I glanced into the nearest display as I hurried by. Inside was a rifle with some kind of bird skull built into the barrel. It seemed to squirm as I looked at it, as if the skull was trying to drag the weapon around and aim at me. I tore my eyes away and ducked out the doorway.

We must have left the Darkness field, because the cold feeling inside me went away. The hallway outside had a ceiling about two stories high. The walls were lined with pillars, and there were doors between them, all labeled with numbers and letters. The hall branched left and right, as well as straight ahead with another intersection in the distance. That was all I could see in the combined headlights of our ghosts. This place was huge.

Ragnar was standing perfectly still. As I approached, he held out a hand to stop me. I did, and realized he was listening.

The marble floors made the acoustics of the place like a shopping mall - the slightest sound echoed and re-echoed. And there was a sound - a scraping, shuffling sound, out in those dark distances somewhere. I thought of the squirming bird skull and gulped.

Zero said in my head, very softly, "What else did the Eye show you?"

"Ragnar will kill me," I thought. "Or try to."

"I wonder why," Zero murmured.

I glanced at her, floating at my shoulder with her light on. She didn't spin her shell or move much at all. She just hung there.

"Are you all right?" I thought.

She turned off her headlight and looked at me, her eye-light dim. "Just tired."

I wanted to tell her to rest, to disappear and stay safe. I wanted to cuddle her in my arms and give her Light and make her well again. But I couldn't do any of those things. All I could do was gently stroke her shell.

Nearby, Ragnar headed left, down the echoing hall. I followed him. Zero started to turn her light on, but I thought, "Just hide for a while. I don't want you to get sniped because you're so visible."

She disappeared, instead. In my head, she said, "Oh Max, I'm terrified of Ragnar. Please keep your distance."

"Why?" I asked. "Do you know him?"

"Yes and no," she replied. "If you saw him trying to kill you, then I think I'm right about some things. I'll tell you once we're through this."

That wasn't great for my state of mind, either. My ghost was sick, I was in a huge Cryptarch vault with an untrustworthy companion, and we were hunting a thief who was going to try to kill us both. And my only gun had no bullets - only a comically small knife welded to the barrel.

"Is there any ammo around here?" I asked Zero.

"Yes," she replied in my head. "Follow Ragnar. There's a door about halfway down the hall where I detected an ammo synth."

I obeyed, hurrying to catch up to the pool of light cast by Ragnar's ghost. As I reached him, he halted again and gestured for silence. I stood still and held my breath. More of that rustling, whispering sound in the distance.

"What's he doing?" Ragnar whispered to himself. He set off again, walking softly on the balls of his feet.

"There," Zero said in my head. "That door on the right, number two-eighty."

I spotted it and turned the knob. Unlocked, for once. I ventured into the darkness inside. Zero wearily appeared and ignited her light for me. We'd entered an office with two desks and a bookshelf loaded with tomes in other languages.

"This desk," Zero said, indicating it with her light. "Top drawer."

"You're turning me into a thief, girl," I muttered.

"Max," she replied, "if we survive this, you can gift the Cryptarchs as much synth as you want."

I opened the drawer and found a white brick of raw matter, wrapped in a metal clasp to hold it together. Ghosts could program this matter into a certain range of bullets, small to mid caliber. Different types of synths contained different materials to create different kinds of ammunition.

Zero played a beam over the brick, programming it. The brick hardened and fell apart into a pile of bullets. I filled my pockets with them and loaded my hand cannon.

"Just warning you," Zero said, "that gun is called Crimson, and the Vanguard banned it years ago."

"Why?" I asked, glancing uneasily at the red stains on the barrel.

"I don't know," Zero replied. "The tag says that it's classified as a weapon of sorrow, so be very careful with it."

I had a vague notion that weapons of sorrow were used to kill Guardians for good. But I had no idea how that worked. I slid the loaded weapon through my belt. "This is just for defense, Zero."

"I hope," she whispered.

I left the office and found that Ragnar was down the hall and around the corner, judging by the reflected light that way. I hurried after him, glancing into the darkness around me. The knife-man in black could have been standing ten feet away and I'd never have seen him.

I almost reached for the Eye, but restrained my hand. I didn't have time for a peek into other realities right now. It was cheating, looking into the future. But now that I'd thought about it, I had the itch in my mind. I'd use the helmet again as soon as I could.

I rounded the corner and saw Ragnar across the way, peering down another intersection. He went on without waiting for me. As I hurried after him, I happened to glance down the hall behind me.

Glints of glowing white were creeping up the hall. The shuffling, rustling sound was louder. And by the movements, there were a lot of the things.

The augmented robots from my vision were here.

* * *

Zero

* * *

I felt Max's jolt of fear a second before I saw the robots. As he drew Crimson, I sent an alert to Ragnar's ghost: "Enemy frames springing ambush at my position!"

Max held Crimson, gripping it with both hands, but hesitated. "Should I shoot? What if they're harmless?"

"Should I give you light?" I asked.

"No!" he exclaimed. "Stay hidden!"

I executed a passive scan from phase. "There's ten of them, and all their settings have been overridden with malicious software. And they're running on radiolaria. That's the white stuff. It gives them more agency than frames usually have."

"What the heck is radiolaria?" Max demanded, backing away from the advancing robots.

"Vex milk," I replied. "These things are essentially Vex goblins now."

Ragnar arrived at that point, carrying a knife in either hand. His ghost beamed his light at the frames. Each robot had tubes of white fluid wrapped around its torso and leading up to the head. They walked in a limping, lurching way, as if trying to move in ways their bodies weren't capable of.

"What are you waiting for?" Ragnar exclaimed. "Blast 'em, kid!"

Max squeezed the trigger. Crimson fired a three-round burst, kicking back, the muzzle angling up. Max's wrist snapped. One of the robots sparked and began to leak white fluid.

Max swore and dropped Crimson, doubling up and holding his wrist. Ragnar scooped the gun off the floor, gripped it correctly, and dispatched two robots with it, controlling the three-round burst.

The other robots scattered, dashing in different directions down the vault's halls.

I materialized and healed Max's poor wrist. He straightened his hand and rotated his wrist with a breath of relief.

Ragnar turned to us with a sarcastic grin. "Never fired a hand cannon before, huh, kid?"

"No," Max said, straightening.

Ragnar demonstrated a proper grip, and how to brace against the kick. Then he stuck it through his own belt. "I'll carry this for you so you don't hurt yourself. We Guardians gotta look out for each other."

He strode away, leaving Max staring after him with his mouth open. "Did he just steal my gun?"

"Yes, he did," I said unhappily. I phased myself, feeling even more weary. "Be extra careful now, Guardian. He has more ways to kill you."

Max pulled out the Eye and put it on. After a moment, he placed it back in his bag, pulled out a sandwich, and munched it as we trailed after Ragnar.

"Did the Eye tell you to have lunch?" I asked.

"No," Max said. "I was hungry. The Eye shows us getting jumped by robots all over the place. They go for the neck and try to choke you out. Same vision with the knife man in black, too. He blows off Ragnar's arm or something."

I nearly told him what I knew about Ragnar. But it wasn't the time or the place. Besides, the last time I'd been forced to explain my history - the reason for my name - to Max, he'd told me to go away and leave him forever. I was already barely holding myself together, and he needed all his wits to survive the challenge presented to us.

I kept my scans open for an exit in the faint hopes that we could simply escape.

* * *

Max

* * *

I didn't tell Zero all the ways the helmet showed her dying. Shot out of the air. Stabbed by Ragnar. Stabbed by the man in black. Grabbed by an enemy robot and crushed in its fist. I was beginning to panic any time she showed herself at all.

Ragnar had stolen my gun. The Guardian-killer gun. The visions had changed to show him shooting me with it instead of stabbing me. And still, the knife-man in black waited with his Vex milk gun, erasing Ragnar's arm.

I'd seen that vision multiple times, now. The arm wasn't blown off. It was simply erased from the elbow down. No blood, just a folded sleeve, as if Ragnar had always been missing it. I wanted to describe it to Zero, and realized that I couldn't. I kept trying to rationalize it. Surely there was an explanation - even if the explanation was that the Eye was showing faulty visions.

I trailed after Ragnar and his ghost, despising this situation more and more. I retrieved the metal chair leg from my belt and carried it in one hand, so at least I wasn't unarmed. Why had I agreed to become a Guardian? Guardians were sociopathic bullies. If I hadn't wanted Zero so much, I'd never have done it. And here I was, dealing with amoral Guardian baggage, just like I'd feared.

Well, I'd made my bed, and now I'd have to sleep in it. I was going to survive this, because Zero deserved better than any of the deaths the Eye had seen. She deserved to be whole and healthy, with a good Guardian who cared for her properly.

My jacket bag was down to one water bottle. I put my coat back on and jammed the bottle into the pocket, carrying the helmet under one arm. Maybe I'd have slightly more protection against blunt force trauma now. I turned my collar up, thinking of metal hands slipping around my throat.

"Zero," I thought, "I need armor."

"What kind?" she asked, sounding more cheerful than she'd been in hours.

"Like Ragnar's," I said. "That form-fitting leather stuff that can turn knives."

She didn't answer for a moment. Then she said, "Stand still for a minute."

I obeyed, watching as she appeared in a swirl of light. She swept my torso with her scan beam, the way she had the synth brick. A vest made of some hard substance formed around my torso, over my shirt, but under my jacket. She finished and disappeared again. "There. Happy birthday."

I rapped my knuckles against the armor. It was some kind of tough fiber weave, but that was all I could tell in the dark. "Where did this come from? And it's not my birthday."

"I've spent years crafting armor for my Guardian," she said, sounding extremely shy. "All three classes. And ... you've been a Guardian less than twenty-four hours, so ... I can wish you a happy birthday if I want to."

Gosh, she was so adorable. I wanted to hug her. But it was too dangerous for her to stay out, so I settled for thinking, "My sweet little girl ghost. I owe you a pretty shell for this."

She made a happy beeping sound.

I caught up to Ragnar, feeling a little better now with the heavy vest protecting my vitals. "The Eye says we're going to die."

"The Eyes shows possible futures," Ragnar replied. "We can take steps to avoid those outcomes. Are you seeing new deaths?"

"Same ones," I replied. "One weird thing, though. I can see all this Light coming off certain guns. What if we loaded up on Light armor? Would it give us our powers back?"

Ragnar halted with a funny look on his face, as if I'd said the most astounding thing in the world. "You know, I don't know. It's worth a shot." He glanced at his ghost. "Armory?"

"I'll guide you," his ghost replied.

We turned a corner and got jumped by an attack robot. It sprang out from behind a pillar, threw itself at Ragnar, and knocked him down. It went straight for his throat with both hands.

I swing my metal bar like a baseball bat and knocked its head off. White fluid spurted from the tubes that had been connected to it. But this didn't kill it - it kept right on trying to throttle Ragnar.

He struggled and arched his back. He managed to throw the robot off him, breaking its grip. Then he drew Crimson and shot it in the torso, destroying the rest of the Vex hack as well as the frame's battery. The robot collapsed.

"That was fun," I remarked, returning the metal bar to my belt.

"Loads," Ragnar agreed, climbing to his feet. "I love being attacked by killer robots." He checked Crimson's magazine, shook his head, then returned it to his belt. I wasn't about to tell him that my pockets were full of bullets. Not when I'd seen him shoot me with them.

"Come on, kid," Ragnar said. "You may be handy in a fight, but if you had some Light powers, it'd change your life."

"What could I do?" I asked as we hurried along, watching the shadows for attack.

"Depends," Ragnar replied. "On your class discipline and type of Light. Lots of flexibility within each class. Me, I'm a Golden Gun man. Solar Light. Fire knives. But you became a Guardian after the Traveler was caged, right?"

I nodded.

Ragnar snorted. "So you never even felt the Light. No wonder you want to try armor. Well kid, it may not work, but then again, it might. I'm willing it give it a go."

We halted before another of those huge steel doors. His ghost hacked it, and Ragnar pulled it open.

Inside was another museum-like room filled with displays, some free standing, some along the walls. A peek through the Eye showed that everything blazed with Light.

We walked around the room, peering at the armor under the glass. Everything in here was armor - helmets, gauntlets, shoulder pauldrons, boots and leg guards, cloaks, bonds, and marks. All of it looked strange and exotic, as if each item had been collected from the furthest-flung moons of the solar system.

Ragnar made a soft moan of longing. He had his ghost open a case on the wall, and pulled out a helmet shaped like a bird's head with the beak over the wearer's nose. He put it on. "I've only ever seen pictures of this beauty," he said from beneath it, his eyes seemingly hidden. "Celestial Nighthawk. Focuses a Hunter's Light to a razor edge."

"Does it give you your Light back?" I asked.

Ragnar held out a cupped hand, as if trying to summon fire. Nothing happened. "No, but I can feel something. Let's find more."

He began equipping himself with armor chosen from the locked cases. He muttered and whistled through his teeth, his ghost making tiny delighted sounds. He pulled on some kind of boots he called Stomp-EE3s, and a bladed set of gauntlets called Shards of Galanor.

I just stood there and stared at the armor with no idea what to choose.

"Zero," I thought, "I have analysis paralysis."

"I wish we knew your class," she sighed in my head. "But since we don't ... why don't you use the Eye to pick out armor?"

Now that was a great idea. I put it on and blinked through the probabilities. A moment later, I pulled it off. "Would you mind unlocking these cases, here?"

Zero materialized and looked at their contents. And she giggled.


	5. Chapter 5: The Gorgon's Stare

I wound up putting on a second breastplate over the vest Zero had given me. She said it was for Hunters, and it was called Ophidia Spathe. I pulled on gauntlets and shoulder plates called Synthoceps, intended for warrior Titans, and warlock boots called Transversive Steps that were supposed to let me run faster. I felt as wide as a truck afterward, and it started getting a little too warm at once. But it was worth it, because all that armor began leaking Light into me.

I don't know how to describe it. When Zero bonded and healed me that first time, it was like she had given me a strength transfusion. I felt more alert, and stronger, and - and like I never needed to eat or drink again. The euphoria wore off pretty quickly, but those first ten minutes were glorious.

That's how it felt to wear all that armor. That feeling of excess energy returned - of being able to run and jump and never need to eat or rest. No wonder Zero said that some Guardians could sustain themselves on the Light. It was like I had been plugged into an infinite battery. No wonder the Guardians collapsed when this was cut off. It'd be real easy to depend on it for everything. Going back to being human would be a kind of death.

I held out both hands and thought-called to Zero. She appeared in my hands. I closed both hands gently around her and held her, willing some of that Light to trickle into her, too. Her little eye gazed trustingly up at me from between my palms.

"Do you feel any Light?" I whispered.

She blinked thoughtfully. "I think I do. It's very faint. It feels ... nice." Her eyelids irised closed and she sat there, her shell going slack and relaxed against my fingers. I was reminded of holding a kitten that had fallen asleep in my lap, the way its little head had nodded to one side and the paws had gone limp. Did ghosts purr the way a kitten could? The thought made me smile. I'll bet she'd try, if I asked.

"Hey kid," Ragnar said behind me.

I turned. Ragnar looked ferocious with his bird helmet and bladed gauntlets. His ghost floated at his shoulder, providing light.

"What's wrong with your ghost?" he asked, looking at my cupped hands.

"Nothing," I said, drawing her close to my breastplate. "Just giving her a little extra Light charge."

Ragnar's mouth smirked beneath the helmet. "Ghosts need a little TLC sometimes, eh? Well, tell her to hurry up. My ghost got a read on the thief's location. He's holed up in another of these inner vaults. Might take some thought to lure him out."

"Lead on," I said.

As Ragnar turned toward the door, Zero vanished out of my hands. "I'm good for now," she said in my head. "Thanks, Max."

"You're welcome, little girl ghost," I thought. I scooped up the Eye helmet, jammed it on my head, and followed Ragnar out of the armor vault.

* * *

Zero

* * *

Max had no idea what kind of armor he'd put on. He crackled with three kinds of Light - Solar, Arc, and Void. Without a proper connection to the Traveler, it coursed around and through him, never quite connecting with his being the way it should have. He was able to draw on it in a primitive way. He probably thought this tiny taste of Light was what it felt like to be a full-blown Guardian.

My poor Max. I should have been his conduit to the Light. Instead, he had to be mine, doing his best to pour Light back into me. The feeble flickers I picked up were like glints of hope in a black well of despair. Some of my weariness eased. If this fight against the knife-man in black went badly, I'd be able to heal Max.

I rode along inside his armor as he followed Ragnar back out into the echoing hallways. I tried to catch bits of Light from his armor with my essence, like a child catching raindrops on her tongue.

Ragnar's ghost hailed me. His name was Fynn. "Hello, Zero. That's your name, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," I replied. "Unless my Guardian chooses something better."

"Are you the Zero associated with this flag?"

He sent me a copy of a ghost alert flag I had placed years and years ago. The sight of it clinched a suspicion I'd been nursing for some time.

"Yes," I whispered. "I placed that flag."

Fynn didn't respond for a moment. Then he snapped, "Well - well, you're wrong. There's nothing wrong with my Guardian's spark. Just because you thought it was full of Darkness doesn't mean you're right. He's been a very good Guardian to me."

Ragnar had been the spark I had found in the wilds ... the one I had rejected, because the twist of Darkness and despair within it had too closely resembled that of the Warlords. Fynn had disregarded my warning and resurrected him anyway. And now my sweet, innocent Max was walking side by side with a monster.

Ragnar was the reason another ghost had named me Zero - because I had rejected him as a Guardian. It seemed I couldn't escape him. Our fates were entwined. I studied his spark as we walked through the dark, then wished I hadn't. I knew it through and through - I'd spent days studying it, wishing for my Guardian, but not daring to resurrect this one. He would return with a bent toward violence and cruelty, indifferent to the Light.

So different from Max.

I wanted to warn Max, to explain how dangerous Ragnar was. But as we turned a corner near the knife-man's hideout, we were attacked by five of the Vex robots.

Ragnar lifted Crimson and emptied it into the nearest robot. Then he drew his knife and set to work on another.

Max clenched his fists inside his steel gauntlets and punched a robot as hard as he could. I felt the Light inside the armor powering the blow, increasing the force delivered. His fist smashed through the robot's torso, cracking the battery. As it collapsed, Max swung the metal body around and bludgeoned another robot with it. He punched this robot as it staggered, bringing it down.

The last robot went for Max's neck from behind, but Ragnar jabbed his knife into its core. It fell with a clatter.

Then there was silence, disturbed only by the panting of the two men. My bond with Max let me feel the throbbing in his right fist, pain spreading up his arm. Without the Light to strengthen his bone and sinew, he had broken several bones in his hand. I quietly healed him from phase.

I dreaded what we would find inside that vault.

* * *

Max

* * *

Ragnar sheathed his knife, then handed Crimson to me. "Out of bullets, so this is a fancy knife, now."

I groped around my own waist until I found the heavy belt I'd put on, and stuck Crimson through it. "Thanks for nothing," I muttered. To reload the gun, I'd have to unearth my pants pockets beneath the armor, and I was not shucking off the whole ensemble right now.

Ragnar ignored me. He walked to another sealed vault door and pressed his ear against it. He stayed that way for a long moment. Then he withdrew and said, "Generator running in there. Idiot will kill himself with carbon monoxide poisoning if he doesn't look out."

"Shouldn't we just wait, then?" I said. Breaking my hand punching a robot had been a bit of a downer. If the knife-man was slowly suffocating himself, then I voted that we let him get on with it. I adjusted my gauntlets and silently thanked Zero for the heals.

"Naw," said Ragnar. "I came down here to do a job, and I aim to do it. The Cryptarchs didn't much care if I brought the thief back alive or dead, so long as I recovered what he stole."

"What'd he steal?" I asked. I'd taken off the Eye helmet as soon as the fight was over. It let me see in the dark, but the visions were too distracting. I held it up, now. "I thought he stole this."

Ragnar shook his head with a grin showing beneath his hawk mask. "The Eye's dangerous, but not as dangerous as the Gorgon's Stare. Vex weapon. Lifted from a Gate Lord in the Vault of Glass. Completely humane and utterly heartless. Wounds without causing pain."

"How is that possible?" I asked.

Ragnar shrugged. "Damned if I know. That's what the Cryptarchs told me about it." He turned back to the door. "All right. I'm gonna crack this door. I've got enough Light for one shot with the Golden Gun. Hopefully that's all it takes."

I stood back, arms folded, as Ragnar's ghost hacked the lock. After a while, the lock disengaged with a harsh click. Ragnar pulled it open a crack and peered through.

The noise of a generator rolled out, along with the stink of exhaust. Light flooded out in a long beam - all the lights were on inside that vault. There was the clinking and clanging of tools.

"What's he doing?" Zero asked in my head.

"I'll bet he's building more attack robots," I thought. "Who is this guy? A mad scientist?"

"What's the Eye say?"

I shifted my weight uneasily. "That he plans to kill us all. And ... other things." I couldn't tell her about the way the gun erased parts of people. I'd been shot by it in several visions, and I couldn't put those particular nightmares into words - such as seeing my head suddenly erased.

A male voice called from within the vault. "I know you're there. Don't bother lurking. If you're going to attack, then do it." The voice was drawling and lazy, as if we posed no threat.

Ragnar opened the door all the way and stepped into the doorway. "I'm taking you down, Ard. You've crossed one line too many."

I sidestepped until I could see into the room. The knife-man in black sat at a table with another robot frame lying on it. He was busy installing more tubes into its core. Jars of radiolaria fluid stood behind him on a shelf. A rifle leaned against his chair - a bronze-colored weapon with more white tubes flowing across it. I recognized it from the visions. My heart tried to crawl up my throat.

"So what?" said the knife-man, whose name seemed to be Ard.

"I've got enough Light for a Golden Gun," Ragnar warned. "You'll die where you sit. You never should have broken into the vault."

Ard grinned. He was a capable-looking man in a close-fitting armored suit - Hunter, probably. And yet there was something wrong with his eyes - they were too light for his dark hair and skin. I almost wondered if he was blind. But that wasn't right, because he must be able to see to build robots.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Rag, old buddy," he said. "The Light's out. I'm building an army that can retake the City from the Cabal. None of them can face the Gorgon. We can worry about the Cryptarchs after the dust settles."

Ragnar hesitated, one hand resting on his knife hilt. "You're helping the City? But ... you left the Vanguard. I thought you'd gone renegade."

"Not entirely," Ard replied. "If we get the Light back, you and I can fight it out in the Crucible like old times. The Cryptarchs can have their gun, if they still want it. But if we don't fight for the City, the Cryptarchs won't be coming back. No one will." He patted his robot.

Ragnar stood there, thinking. He wore a satisfied smirk that told me he wasn't going to shoot the guy. Side with him, more like.

I stepped up beside Ragnar. "That's it? We come all this way, and you're just going to join him? His robots tried to kill us!"

"Sorry about that," Ard said with an easy grin. His eyes didn't quite focus on me. "I couldn't control that batch. Too much Vex. This batch will be more tractable."

Ragnar glanced at me. "Old fireteam member. Left to fly solo. Crazy as a bat in the sun, but he makes some good points, yeah?"

"What, fight for the City together?" I said doubtfully.

Ragnar nodded. "Somebody's gotta do it. The Vanguard left. The Guardians are dead or gone. The Cabal sit atop our City with the Traveler like a cherry on an ice cream sundae. But us ... we can change that." He grinned. "But not you. You don't know how to fight."

I drew a breath through my teeth. "Only because you took my gun."

Ard rose to his feet, lifting the bronze Vex rifle. "You brought a Titan who can't fight?"

"He's not a Titan," Ragnar said. "Just a little blueberry who never even knew the Light. Liability in a fight. Scared of everything. Tell you what - I've got an idea. We kill him, leave him here, pin the theft on him. Say we caught him in the vault, where he tried to kill us with the Gorgon. But we exonerate ourselves, a couple of noble Guardians fighting for the City. Nobody will question the heroes who freed the Light."

I stood there with my mouth open, hardly able to believe this. Ragnar had done more than change sides - he planned to murder me to get back into his buddy's good graces. No wonder the Eye showed future after future of him stabbing me or shooting me. He must have been plotting murder all this time.

"Sounds good to me," Ard said, raising his rifle. He aimed it at my chest - one of the worst possible places to be shot by that thing. But I had seen one possibility where I escaped.

I dove behind Ragnar, using him as a shield, just as Ard squeezed the trigger.

The Gorgon's Stare fired a beam of white energy, like lightning. But my movement upset Ard's aim. He hit Ragnar's right arm, instead.

The arm vanished. No wound, no blood. It was simply gone, the sleeve hanging empty.

Ragnar groped at it with his other hand, feeling the empty sleeve. "What - where'd it go? Where's my arm?"

"Hey, sorry, man," Ard said, suddenly sober. "It erased it from your timeline. You never had an arm, now."

"I need my arm!" Ragnar bellowed. He turned on me, snarling. "You little bastard! I'll kill you myself!"

I saw this future, too. There was a reason I'd picked up the Transversive Steps boots. I bolted. Ragnar and Ard followed, Ard trying to line up another devastating shot from the Gorgon.

The power in the boots caught my legs and drove them faster and faster. I counted pillars as I ran. One, two, three, four - dodge and roll. The deadly white beam flashed over my head, just as the Eye had showed me. How many shots did the Gorgon have? It was putting out so much power, it couldn't have more than seven.

I rolled to my feet and kept running. This time, I ducked behind the row of pillars, using them as cover. Ragnar and Ard were falling behind, unable to keep up with my crazy speed. These boots would eventually break my legs, but I could make it back to the vault entrance before that happened.

I mistimed the next vision. I'd seen two versions - one where I crossed the open hall at pillar nine, the other at pillar ten. I'd lost count of them and went to pillar eleven. Then I dashed up the hall, toward the exit, leaving cover.

That's why Ragnar got me with his Golden Gun.

The only reason I didn't instantly die was because his Light was weak. His single bullet punched through my side, below my ribcage, and burned its way through me and out my back. I can't begin to describe the pain. I thought I'd been stabbed with a red-hot spear. An animal howl of pain escaped me as I fell.

Even as I hit the marble floor, Zero began healing me, closing up the damage done to my vitals. But she couldn't mend it all. "Max," she murmured in my head. "That's all the Light I had left. I can't stop the external bleeding."

Some of the horrifying pain inside me subsided, but a huge slab of it remained. I sat there on my hands and knees, doubled over, holding my middle and rocking a little.

Ragnar and Ard caught up, grinning and exchanging high fives. "No need for the Gorgon now," Ragnar was saying. "Save it for the Cabal. We get the Light back, my ghost can restore my arm. No big deal." He drew his knife and held it casually in his left hand.

I'd seen how this ended. Ard would pull my head back and hold me still while Ragnar cut my throat. But I'd also seen how to fight back.

"Zero," I thought, "I need to make two knives out of Light. How do I do it?"

"Imagine them," she replied. "Focus on their size, weight, and sharpness. Craft them out of flame. Then call them to your hands and throw them."

The armor had been trickling Light into me all this time. I had a little pool of it inside me - at least, that's the best way I can describe it. I mentally gathered that Light and drew it apart into two glowing knives. I weighted them for throwing, sharpened their blades on both edges, set them burning hot. And I can't tell you how I knew how to do this. It was like knowing how to read - like I'd known how to do this for years and never really forgotten.

"Hold him still," Ragnar said, brandishing his knife.

Ard stepped forward to grab my hair.

I flung my knives. One second they didn't exist. The next second, they were leaving my hands in a flash of fire. One went through Ard's right eye, into his brain. He didn't make a sound, only dropped to the floor, instantly dead.

The other knife hit Ragnar in the tiny gap where his chest plate met his torso armor. It sank all the way in and disappeared. He staggered backward and fell with a cry. Then he lay there and cursed me. His ghost appeared and tried to heal him, but I guess he was as drained as Zero was, because he couldn't.

No ghost appeared for Ard. The eye that had been pierced by the knife was smoking slightly. Without looking too close, I realized he'd had bionic implants instead of real eyes. Maybe the rest of him hadn't really been alive, either.

"Max," Zero called in my head. "We have to get out of this vault. Go back to that piece of the Traveler. We need Light. Max, can you hear me?"

"I hear you," I thought. I pulled out Crimson and crawled to Ard, and the Gorgon's Stare beside him. Using Crimson's knife, I cut the tubes on the rifle and let the radiolaria fluid drain onto the ground. Then I detached the battery pack and shoved it in my pocket. No more people being erased.

I rose to my feet and staggered in the direction of the exit, leaving Ragnar wounded and snarling behind me. He'd double-crossed me, so let him suffer. His ghost would eventually heal him, anyway.

The boots made my steps light and fast, but the heavy breastplate and shoulder pauldrons weighed me down. Each step sent pain through my middle, and fresh hot blood soaked my shirt. I should have kept it on for the Light charge, but I just couldn't face walking all that distance with the metal pressing on my wounds. So I stopped and took it off, letting it crash to the floor. The heavy belt followed it. All I kept was the boots, Crimson, and the Eye helmet.

I thought I loaded Crimson. I thought about it in great detail - opening the magazine, digging bullets out of my pockets, feeding in each bullet one at a time. Then I found that I hadn't done it. I was still walking slowly through the dark halls. Zero had risked showing herself and floated at my shoulder, lighting my way.

Whenever I spaced out, Zero's friendly little voice brought me back. "Two more hallways, dear Max. Your bleeding is slowing down, so that's good. I mended the internal injuries, so you won't die from this. It's just unpleasant right now. I'll work on that piece of the Traveler until I learn how to tap the Light. If the Hive can do it, so can I."

She kept up this gentle chatter as I walked, one foot ahead of the other, zombie-like. My wounds hurt a little less - the entry and exit wounds. The exit wound was bigger and had bled more, sticking my pants to my skin. I kept vaguely thinking that I needed a shower.

It felt like ages I walked through those dark halls, past pillars that seemed the same, along marble floors that hurt my feet, past door after locked door. The warlock boots felt strange, like the padding was in the wrong places. I kept thinking I must be walking in circles, because shouldn't I be there by now? Then I'd space out and lose track of time.

I woke up as I walked through the Darkness cloud into the first vault. The dire cold inside me was like a slap in the face. I gasped and shuddered, which sent pain through my wounds.

"Oh, I do_ not_ like that," Zero gasped. "They should contain those weapons better. Come on, we're almost through it."

A few paces more, and the cold diminished. I spotted the door leading to the narrow staircase. I would have to climb four or five flights, somehow. My tired muscles and wounded middle protested. All I wanted to do was lie down on the floor and go to sleep.

Zero let me sit on the bottom step and rest for a few minutes. I leaned against the wall and passed into a waking dream of being at work in the New Monarchy booth. I was trying to type on my computer, but my fingers were sticky with blood. I kept asking for something to wipe them on, but nobody around me seemed to understand.

"Max," Zero said in my head. "Come back, sweet Guardian. Don't go into dream state. Come on, you can manage one flight. More rest at the top. Come on, now."

I climbed the stairs at her coaxing, the boots boosting my legs up each step. I dozed on the landing until she woke me up again.

I seemed to spend an eternity on those stairs. But finally I was heaving open the trapdoor, and we were back in the laboratory with the chunk of the Traveler. Light rippled from it, lighting the room a soft blue. It was such a relief to see it, for some reason, I just wanted to cry. I collapsed on the floor beside the table, leaned my head and shoulders on it, and pressed a hand to the cold, stone-like surface of the Traveler piece. Zero flew back and forth over it, scanning, trying to draw out the Light.


	6. Chapter 6: The Light

I pushed the Eye of Another World helmet out of sight beneath the table. I hoped I never saw it again.

I must have slept. I dreamed one of those modified Vex robots was creeping up the stairs, its hands outstretched. I jerked awake and looked at the trapdoor. Still closed. I wanted to drag a table on top of it, but I lacked the strength.

Zero flew around me, touching my wounds with healing Light. It was so faint, it felt like when she used to try to heal me before we were bonded - just warmth and nothing else. I watched her fly and realized how slowly she was moving, how dim her eye was. She was as bad off as I was.

I wordlessly held out my bloodstained hands. She flew into them. I pressed her against the vest she had gifted me. "How're you holding out?" I whispered.

"I'm fine," she said stoutly.

I tilted her back a few inches and gazed into her eye. I didn't say anything, only waited for her to tell me the truth.

After a moment, her resolve broke. "I have no Light," she confessed. "I can't draw it out of this shard. Your helmet and boots don't emit enough. I don't know what we're going to do." She blinked at me sadly. "You need water. And medical attention. And the City is abandoned. All the Guardians have fled Earth. And I ... I can't gather enough Light to make a difference."

"I have Light," I whispered. "I made those knives."

"You collected it from your gear," she replied. "Could you ... share it with me? Somehow?"

I looked inside myself. I had a small pool of Light built up. Instead of shaping it into a weapon, I imagined it as a trickle of energy flowing down my arms to my hands. From there, I willed it into Zero, picturing it filling her little core. My hands grew warm around her shell.

Her blue eye brightened. "That feels good," she sighed in bliss. "It feels like you gave me a warm lantern to push back the darkness."

"Good," I said. "Stay with me a while."

I lay back on the floor and slept again, Zero resting on my chest.

I don't know how much time passed. When I woke up, my middle was stiff and sore, so I couldn't sit up. I lay there, feeling how dry my throat was, and dreamed about the water bottle I had left on the stairs outside - the one I had left holding open the metal gate, that Ragnar had closed. Had he taken that bottle? No, he had taken the one from my jacket, later ...

I fixated on the bottle so hard, I woke Zero. She opened her eye and floated into the air. "I can tell you need something. What is it?"

I told her inside my head, because I couldn't get my voice to work. Zero gave me a long look, then flew away and phased through the outer door. I waited. She was only gone a few minutes, but I had time to lie there and think about what would happen if she never came back.

But she did come back, reappearing in a swirl of particles. "I found it," she said. She transmatted the water bottle onto the floor beside me.

Do you know, I almost wasn't strong enough to break the seal on the lid? I wanted to scream - all that life-giving liquid there in my hands, and I couldn't get to it because I couldn't turn the stupid cap.

Just as I thought somebody would find my skeleton with a sealed water bottle in my bony hands, the lid gave way. I propped myself up on one elbow and drank the water, one long, cool drink after another. I stopped before it was quite empty, lay back and breathed.

Zero hung back and watched me. Then, from out of nowhere, she said, "Ragnar was my Guardian."

"What?" I said, startled.

She explained about the spark she had found in the wilds, but rejected because it had too much Darkness. "I recognized him the moment I saw him. I knew he would treat you badly, just because of the evil in his nature. He's done nothing to curb himself, and I don't think his ghost has tried."

"Why didn't you say something?" I asked. I rolled onto my side and managed to push myself to a sitting position. "The Eye showed me about a hundred ways he planned to kill me."

Zero drooped. "The last time I explained," she said miserably, "you told me to go away. And I couldn't face it."

I had done that, hadn't I? Back before I understood how devoted she was. Bitter shame burned inside me. I tried to swallow it down and forced a smile. "So ... why are you telling me now?"

"Because you're dying," she whispered. "And I'm dying. And we can't save each other. And I'm so sorry."

"I'm not dying," I insisted. "I feel a lot better since that drink."

"Your wounds are infected," Zero said gently. "Your vitals are slowly dropping. I don't have enough Light to stabilize you."

I scooped her out of the air and pressed her cold shell to my cheek. "We're not going to die," I whispered. "I'm going to fight it, and so are you. All this Light is sitting right here on this table. And we're going to make it work."

I'd seen this vision early on - with Zero dying and needing Light from this shard. I'd only misunderstood the timing. I hadn't expected to be dying along with her, though. After all we'd been through, I was not going to roll over and give up. Zero meant too much to me. I'd traded my life for immortality because of her - and what a dud that had turned out to be. If I died as a Guardian, what would happen to my soul? And Zero's? That was something I'd meant to ask the warlocks at our bonding, but it was too late, now.

I dragged myself to my knees and faced the chunk of the Traveler. There were twelve diodes hooked up to one end, leading to instruments attached to the computers, but everything was off because there was no power. I ran a finger along one wire. "Zero, the Cryptarchs have been studying this shard for years, right? Shouldn't that data be on these hard drives?"

Zero blinked at the computers. "I can look." She flew to them in a weary way and began scanning.

Meanwhile, I placed my hands on the shard and began trying to feel the Light inside it. I could feel it, all right, like electricity swirling under glass. But I was wrong for it, somehow. I was misaligned, or tuned to the wrong frequency, or something. The longer I sat there and focused, the more convinced I became that I could reach this Light. But I wasn't ready, somehow.

"Zero," I said, "do we have any idea what class I am, yet?"

"You've tried the armor of all three," she replied, still scanning. "But when it counted most, you used the powers of a Hunter to attack your enemies."

"Do you think I'm a Hunter?" I said, with a touch of revulsion. "Ragnar was a Hunter."

"One bad apple doesn't make them all bad," Zero replied. "Ragnar would have been wicked no matter what class he chose. You'll be wonderful because you already try to do what's right."

Did I? I didn't feel like I did. Most of the time, I felt like I was just struggling along in the dark like everyone else. But I did have certain lines I'd never cross. Backstabbing a friend, for example. Harming the innocent. Letting Zero die.

"What do Hunters do, exactly?" I asked.

I heard the smile in Zero's voice as she spoke. "Everything you already do. Sniff out problems and mysteries. Solve them. It doesn't matter if it's in the City or in the ruins on Mars. You have a head for solving problems. Hunters are survivors. They figure out how to live in any conditions. And they hunt and destroy our enemies. Protecting those who can't protect themselves. You see how Ragnar was an anomaly. Hunters aren't supposed to be like him."

Her words resonated with me. I could be a Hunter because I already had the disposition of one. And I always had, even working for New Monarchy as a clerk.

A fraction of the Light in the shard touched my skin.

"Zero," I exclaimed. "I felt it! I almost got the Light working!"

"Keep at it," she said, emoting a smile. "I just found a database of Light frequencies to try. Maybe we can attack this from both sides."

She began setting her beam to the different frequencies, trying to draw out the Light. I kept focusing on being a Hunter and coaxing Light into me. Sometimes I coaxed a wisp or two into my hands. Zero managed to touch the Light twice, just enough to give her a little more strength. She immediately turned to heal me with it.

"No!" I said, covering her eye with one hand. "No heals. You're killing yourself."

"But the infection," Zero protested, escaping my grasp. "It will kill you so fast, Max. At least let me reduce it."

"Save some Light for yourself," I ordered. "I can't lose you like this."

"I can draw more Light," she said. "Don't worry." And she healed me entirely. The pain vanished. Once more, that unusual strength and clarity of mind was restored to me.

"Zero!" I yelled. I had to catch her as she dropped out of the air. She lay exhausted in my hands, her eye flickering.

"Damn you, Zero," I whispered. "Don't you dare die."

She weakly emoted a smile. "Had to heal you, dear Max. Can't watch you suffer."

"Can you get more Light?" I asked, turning her toward the fragment on the table. "Please recharge yourself. Please."

Zero gazed at the fragment for a moment. She tried twice to ignite her scan beam, but it faded each time. "Not enough Light to maintain."

I cuddled her under my chin with one hand. With the other, I touched the fragment and began trying to draw out the Light.

We sat there for hours. Zero held on, somehow. I drew tiny amounts of Light from the fragment and passed them to her. She had healed me, and I would do the same for her, no matter how long I had to sit there.

After a long time, her little voice broke the silence. "Why are you doing this?"

"To save your life," I replied.

"No, I mean ..." she hesitated. "I told you about Ragnar. How I rejected him. Do you remember Priscilla, the ghost who sent you to jail? She saw me abandon that spark. She called me Zero after that. Everyone did. The ghosts laughed at me."

I clenched my jaw. "They ... laughed at you."

"They did," she said. "I couldn't explain why Ragnar was the wrong choice. Not to a crowd of ghosts who wouldn't listen."

"Then," I said, "why did you accept the name Zero? It's on your ID tag, even. And it was to mock you."

"I don't know," she said miserably. After a moment, she added, "I guess I took the name to punish myself. Zero the failure. I'd given up on finding a Guardian, really. It's why investigated that first murder, on the wall. Before that, I was going through the motions of Guardian hunting, just to have something to do."

She'd never told me any of this. I ached for her - and at the same time, I was furious at other ghosts for treating her that way. I nuzzled her a little. "Nobody will ever laugh at you again. Not my little girl ghost."

I looked down into her blue eye, which was focused on my face. "I can rename you," I told her. "You don't have to be a zero. Because you have me, now. And nothing will ever hurt you as long as I'm here."

Her eye changed shapes, almost as if she were trying not to cry. I'd never seen that expression before.

"It's all right," she said shakily. "I've made peace with it. Zero is the most powerful number. Now that I have you, I'm the zeroes behind your one. And you're one in a million."

I laughed and my eyes watered at the same time. "That is the sweetest, corniest thing I've ever heard."

"It's true," she said. "I didn't have you as a Guardian for very long. But I'm honored to have been your friend, and for a few days, your ghost. I hope another ghost finds you when I'm gone. You deserve the Light."

"Don't talk like that," I said around the lump in my throat. "You're not going to die. I'm going to save you."

"Yes, dear Max," she whispered, closing her eye. "If anyone can, it's you."

I clutched her a little closer and kept reaching for the Light.

* * *

I must have fallen asleep that way. I woke up with my head resting on the table top, one hand still pressed to the fragment. My hand holding Zero had slipped to the side, and I'd slept with her shell poking my face. I probably had triangles etched in my skin.

"Zero," I said through a dry mouth. Blast, I was so thirsty and hungry again. "Zero, I'm sorry, I dozed off."

She didn't stir. Her eye remained closed.

"Zero?" My heart lurched and began to pound. I picked her up in both hands. "Zero, please be alive! Please wake up!"

No answer. No blinking blue eye. Only a dreadful, empty silence, both from her and inside my head, where her voice used to be.

I reached for the fragment. "I can fix this," I said aloud, trying to reassure myself. "She just needs Light, right? She can recharge, right? Like a robot?"

But ghosts weren't really robots, were they? I'd seen people bring in dead ones they had found in the wilds, always taken to the Vanguard crypt for an honorable burial. I'd seen ghosts who had lost their Guardians quietly return to the Traveler in the sky, never to be seen again. I'd seen a murdered ghost, its eye punctured by a knife.

If Zero was dead, I couldn't bring her back.

This awful knowledge weighing on me, I reached desperately for the Light.

And the Light reached for me.

I found out afterward that this was the precise moment that the Traveler awakened and threw off the Cabal's cage. It emitted a flash of Light that illuminated the universe. The fragment under my hand also flashed, blinding me for a moment. Power filled me - that warm, adrenaline feeling I'd gleaned from my gear. But this was a thousand times stronger. I leaped to my feet with a gasp. "Zero! The Light! I feel it!"

Her eye remained dark.

"Oh, don't do this to me," I muttered. I held her in both hands and poured Light into her. Abundant, generous, warm Light, it flowed and flowed into her, because I had enough. More than enough. I was awash in Light until I didn't know what to do with myself. Was this what it was like to be a Guardian? This amazing feeling? I felt like I could jump higher than a building and run for miles. I suddenly had a million questions. But the only one who could answer them lay lifeless in my hands.

"Zero," I called. "My little girl ghost, come on, please. Come back. I need you." Her shell and core grew hot from all the Light I was giving her, yet that eye remained closed.

I finally had to stop or set her on fire. I sat on the floor with my ghost in my lap and put my head in my hands. She was gone. My faithful friend was gone, and only hours before the Light returned. Now I had Light, but what good did it do me with no Ghost? I couldn't join the Vanguard, not in any real capacity. I'd probably have to go back to New Monarchy, keep working my old job - assuming we could retake the City.

I sat there, my body full of Light and my mind full of darkness. Where did ghosts go when they died? Did their souls just vanish? Did they return to the Traveler? Was there a heaven for good ghosts and a hell for bad ones? So many things I couldn't ask and nobody knew, anyway. My Zero was gone, and I only hoped she had passed on to some kind of afterlife. I'd sold my soul to the Traveler for her, and now I had Light and nothing else. Despite all my efforts, she had slipped away, slain by her own attempts to heal me. Now I was whole and she was dead.

But I was still a Guardian. A Hunter, even. As a Guardian, I had duties to protect humanity and the Traveler.

I drew a shaky breath and wiped my eyes. I had armor. I had Crimson. I had Light. I'd find my way out of the Tower and fight until I fell. Maybe I'd see Zero again on the other side - assuming Guardians had an afterlife.

I stood up and gently placed Zero on the table, beside the Traveler fragment. "I'll come back for you," I told her softly. "And I'll ... I'll make sure you have a nice funeral."

Saying those words broke me. I pictured her on a tiny shelf in the crypt, her eye forever dark, with a little engraved placard with her name and mine. I didn't even have a picture of us together. My poor, faithful Zero. I bowed my head and wept for my friend.

When the trapdoor opened, I didn't care. I watched Ragnar emerge from the stairwell, and it meant nothing to me. Zero was dead. That single misery outweighed all other facts.

Ragnar was still missing his right arm. The eyes in his hawk mask glowed brilliant gold, and he gripped his knife in his left hand. "I owe you big time for what you did to me," he said, casually.

I knew he meant to murder me properly. And it didn't matter. I was going to die somehow, anyway, either here or fighting the Cabal. I just stood there beside the table and looked at him.

Ragnar's gaze settled on Zero's motionless shape. He slowly grinned. "Your ghost died, didn't it? No wonder you're bawling. That'll make things a lot easier."

He sheathed his knife and held up his empty hand. Fire erupted around his arm and blazed down to his hand, where it took the shape of a Golden Gun.

He fired.


	7. Chapter 7: Iron Lords

Zero

* * *

I wandered in the shadowlands, and it was cold.

My spark had spiraled loose from my core, leaving me shapeless in the dark Outside. This was somewhere in the Nine Realms, or maybe none of them. I should return to the Traveler ... but it was caged. I felt no guiding Light to lead me home. I no longer knew my way back to Max. All was foggy dimness without direction, hills without form, sky without shape.

So I drifted in the shadowlands, and I was afraid. In the eternal gloom, beasts crept and worms crawled. Things with too many eyes gazed toward my spark. The formless ground erupted like blisters, vomiting forth things with wriggling legs and nauseous bodies. I fled from them in horror. My spark wouldn't last long among such horrors.

Other ghosts wandered here, too - ghosts like me who had died for lack of Light. I saw one ghost hunt down another, attack it, and quench its spark. I fled in panic - I'd never seen ghosts kill each other before. The shadowlands affected us all. The strongest survive, while the weak perish. I saw the worms feeding on each other, and on the bloodthirsty ghosts, and I understood that this was Darkness. A place where there could only be power, and those too weak to seek it.

Then the Traveler awakened.

A Light appeared in the shadows, the brilliant light of dawn. I turned toward it and laughed. Now I knew my way home. The hideous creatures of darkness writhed and screamed, the Light burning them in putrid smoke. They burrowed back beneath the ground, leaving only bones behind.

Other Ghosts shot toward the Traveler in glad streaks of Light. But I hesitated. The Light showed me two paths. I could go forward, into the amazing Light of the Traveler and the glory that awaited. Or I could take a longer road, one much narrower and harder, but still bathed in Light. Max waited there, his spark flashing to me like a lonely beacon, ready to begin his journey. Even from here, I felt him grieving for me. I yearned for him more than I yearned for my final rest. Love threatened to tear me apart.

"Traveler?" I said, half-apologizing. "I've waited so long for my Guardian."

"Go to him, dear one," the Traveler whispered to me in the language of Light. "Your work is not yet over. Your Guardian needs you."

So I turned and took the hard road back to Max.

I awoke to the bang of a Golden Gun. I was resting on the table beside the Traveler fragment. Max was a blur of speed, dashing around the room. Ragnar was firing at him with a Golden Gun at full strength.

Fresh from the shadowlands, I watched my two Guardians, one trying to kill the other, and it made sense. The worms fed on Light, craving it and yet fearing it, for it revealed their hideousness. And Ragnar's spark was riddled with wormrot.

I phased and sought his ghost, Fynn. Fynn was close to Ragnar in phase, watching anxiously, ready to heal his Guardian.

"Shame on you!" I exclaimed, flying into his face. "Ragnar knew Max's ghost was dead, and he tries to kill him anyway!"

"You're not dead?" Fynn gasped. "How?"

"That's not important right now," I snapped. "Call off your Guardian."

"I ..." Fynn looked at Ragnar. "I can't."

"Have you never tried?" I yelled. "Have you never told him his actions were wrong? Why do you let him feed his evil nature?"

"Because ..." Fynn backed away. "He's so much stronger than me. He said he'd kill me if I reprimanded him."

"Then you should die!" I raged. "Die rather than let your Guardian walk the path of sorrow, if that's what it takes! Do you want to become like the ghosts of the warlords? They craved blood the way their masters did."

"No, no, I-" Fynn didn't know how to respond. As Ragnar ran out of bullets and switched to his knife again, Fynn hid behind him.

I followed him. "Call him off!"

"I can't! I won't!"

* * *

Max

* * *

The Light combined with the Transversive Steps boots let me move insanely fast. I ran and rolled and dodged and jumped. Three fiery bullets of Light burned through the room, tearing holes in the walls. One stung across my thigh, searing instantly through cloth and flesh. I sucked in my breath through clenched teeth.

I rolled to my feet and drew Crimson. I gripped it correctly, aimed at Ragnar's center of mass, and fired.

The powerful three-round burst kicked in my hands. The bullets punched into Ragnar, his armor turning two of them. He charged me with his knife. I fired another burst into him before he grabbed my arms and slashed at my wrists. He got one of them, laying me open to the bone. The pain only made me angrier. I stabbed him in the neck with Crimson's blade.

This was no careful fight, like one I'd had before, where I only fired in self-defense, and shot only to wound. This was a brutal life and death struggle against a guardian whose ghost would heal him. I had no ghost, and I was pretty much already doomed. But I was going to make Ragnar bleed before I went.

The stab to the neck sent Ragnar reeling backward, pressing a hand to the wound and gasping. I gripped my arm, trying to slow the bleeding. I could see the inner workings of my wrist, and it wasn't pretty. I'd bleed out in a few minutes.

Then I felt the last thing I expected - a warm, comforting healing beam swept me, mending the cut, healing the burn on my leg.

"Zero?" I thought in amazement.

"I'm here," she said in my head. "I found my way back." She sounded preoccupied, and a second later, I saw why.

Ragnar's ghost appeared and started to heal his throat wound. But Zero appeared, too, flying in his way, blocking his beam. "No! Not until you call him off!"

"I can't!" Ragnar's ghost cried.

Ragnar's lips moved, but no sound came out. He looked outraged.

Ragnar's ghost wove this way and that, trying to escape Zero, but she stayed exactly in his way. I'd never seen her angry before - angry and aggressive. She zapped Ragnar's ghost with a red beam I'd never seen her use before. Ragnar's ghost yelped in pain. He opened his shell and shielded himself with his Light field.

"You've done your Guardian disservice after disservice!" Zero snarled. "You've let him spiral!"

Ragnar swiped at Zero. I retrieved Crimson from the floor and aimed it at his face. "Don't move."

Ragnar froze, still holding his throat.

Ragnar's ghost said, "But his Darkness has made him powerful!"

"He's no different from a warlord," Zero shot back, hitting him another another red beam. It went straight through the Light field and struck the ghost's core. He cried and whimpered.

Zero went on, "Look at him, Fynn! He lives for money and killing. No Guardian should behave this way, and you've permitted it! If you don't address him right now, I swear I'll quench your Light. I know how to do it."

Ragnar and his Ghost exchanged a horrified look. Then Ragnar's ghost said, in a trembling voice, "She says that I've let you corrupt yourself. That I should have at least protested all the Guardians you've killed. And ... and maybe she's right. I'll heal you this last time, but no more until you begin serving something greater than yourself." He healed Ragnar, and this time Zero permitted it.

As soon as the pain was gone, Ragnar lunged forward and grabbed his ghost. "You little shit! I told you not to cross me, I don't care what that bastard told you! I don't need your healing!" And he stabbed his own ghost with his knife.

The ghost shrieked as he died. Light erupted from his core and lit the room like lightning. The shockwave hit me in the chest - raw energy and stunned grief.

The man had murdered his own ghost. As precious as Zero was to me, it hit me hard. It was as if I'd watched Ragnar butcher a child.

Crimson wasn't enough. I reached for the fire knives. This time dozens of them came to my hands - burning with bright fire, viciously sharp, weighted for throwing.

I flung them into Ragnar - handful after handful of fire knives.

He was dead after the first round pierced his heart, but I wanted to be sure. So I hit him with three more handfuls, burning through his armor, cooking him from the inside.

Then I stood there, panting, staring at the dead man and his dead ghost, the blade still stuck in its core. I had killed a Guardian. Permanently. An immortal had been ended by my hand.

I walked away, to the lab's outer door. I shoved it open, climbed the stairs to the metal gate halfway up, and sat with my back to the bars.

I sat there for a long time, staring at the lab door and the blue, rippling light beyond. I want to say that I thought about things, but I didn't think at all. I just sat there.

Zero appeared at my shoulder after a while. I picked her up and cradled her in my arms. I ran a finger around the rim of her eye lens, imagining a knife piercing that glass, extinguishing that eye. I pressed my cheek against her shell and held her in silence.

"I thought you were dead," I whispered in my mind. "You wouldn't wake up, even when the Light returned."

"I was dead," she whispered back. "I wandered the shadowlands until the Traveler guided me back. I have work to do, yet, dear Max. You're my Guardian."

"A Guardian who kills Guardians," I said aloud, straightening and letting her float into the air. I hunched my shoulders and gazed at her. "I've murdered two people, Zero. Is this what being a Guardian is really about? I thought I'd be a protector. Instead I'm ... whatever I'm becoming."

"You killed Ard in self defense," Zero said softly. "He had already fired on you with the Gorgon's Stare. Ragnar ... I wasn't awake yet. Who attacked first?"

"He did," I said miserably. "He came up the trapdoor as I was ... and you were dead. He just laughed and said it made things easier, then pulled his Golden Gun on me."

"He killed Fynn," Zero said, sounding as amazed and sickened as I felt. "I've never seen that happen before. Just ... killed the source of his own immortality in cold blood. Poor Fynn. You were right to kill Ragnar. If you hadn't, then someone else would have had to. And other people, maybe ghosts, too, would have died. He was an animal."

"Maybe so," I said. "Maybe it was just. But it doesn't change the fact that I chose to end two lives. Me. I didn't have to. I could have gone non-lethal. But I killed, instead."

Zero gazed at me, uncertain. I heard her start to speak, then stop. She didn't know what to say.

I rose from my seat on the steps and returned to the lab. Ragnar's body lay crumpled on the floor, still smoking and smelling awful from the fire knives. His ghost lay beside him.

I composed the body, rolling him onto his back, folding the hands on the chest. I laid the ghost at his left shoulder, leaving the knife.

"I'm sorry, brother," I whispered. "But I believe justice had to be done, and I was the only one to do it. May the Traveler receive your spark."

I stood and gazed at the expressionless face for a moment. Then I turned away. "Guide me out of this Tower, Zero. I'm tired of the dark."

"This way," she said.

* * *

I helped the Vanguard retake the Last City. I helped build the new Tower further down the wall - hard manual labor in the sun, rain, and wind. Someone gave me a spare Hunter's cloak, and I spent a lot of nights wrapped in it, sleeping on a pile of tarps, before the dormitories were built.

I constantly carried with me the sickness and guilt of what I'd done. I'd used my power to murder two people. I'd always known that Guardians were killers, and now I was one, too. An immortal lifetime of taking lives, innocent or not.

As soon as the Vanguard was operating in any kind of official capacity, I turned myself in. I explained what had happened and what I'd done. Gave them Crimson and the battery pack from the Gorgon's Stare. They reviewed Zero's footage. I wanted them to punish me. Chain me up, or torture me, or just downright execute me. Anything to assuage this guilt.

I spent a day just sitting in the hanger with Cayde-6, who was officially in charge of me, being a Hunter. He was supposed to keep an eye on me, so I sat against the wall of his little shop, hoping he'd tell me off, or maybe punch me a few times. I was a murderer.

Instead, after an hour of working on maps and patrol data, Cayde came and sat beside me. He was an Exo with a blue paint job and blue eyes, and a consummate Hunter. I didn't know him very well. When I'd worked for New Monarchy, I'd avoided the Vanguard because they scared me. Now I'd thrown myself on their judgment and waited for the hammer to fall.

Cayde didn't say anything for a while. His ghost floated beside him, as Zero floated beside me. Cayde reached up and touched his ghost's shell. "Ever think about how amazing ghosts are?"

I shook my head.

"Sent out by the Traveler at the Collapse," Cayde went on. "They hunt for us for centuries, never giving up. When they do find us, they're faithful companions for life." He lifted his own ghost out of the air and stroked her like a cat. "Take Sundance, here. Sweetie pie. Doesn't take crap from me. Stuck with me even when I did stupid stuff. And I've done a lot of stupid stuff, kid. Wasn't always in the Vanguard."

"Ever kill Guardians?" I said, my voice coming out in a croak.

Cayde looked at me sideways. Then he returned his gaze to his ghost. "Yeah."

I didn't say anything, just waited for him to go on.

After a moment, Cayde said, "First guy I ever killed, warlord wannabe. I hunted those guys. Trying to save people from the predators, you know? And we weren't Guardians back then. We were Risen. Wasn't until Felwinter came along, put his foot down, did humanity have a chance. I joined his hunters. We hunted outlaws. This guy had been stalking this village, taking their supplies, threatening to kill anybody who opposed him. He'd killed so many of them, taken their women. I shot him. His ghost attacked me. I killed it, too."

I sat in silence, picturing this. The world before the City Age had been a horrible, desperate place.

"It was justice," I said after a while. "He was a criminal."

"Criminal's too light a word," Cayde said. "But yeah. Affected me for a while. I'd killed a Lightbearer like myself. It hurt, having to kill the ghost. But it was as bad as he was. They get that way, given enough time."

I sat there without speaking. This didn't make me feel any better.

"Point is," Cayde said, "you did right. It was a bad situation, kill or be killed. I knew Ragnar. Ard, too. Ard went rogue years ago. Went crazy researching the Vex. If his ghost was gone, he probably lost her in his experiments. And Ragnar wasn't right to begin with. Always something about his eyes, even from the first. Never trusted him. He never trusted me. Never filed proper reports. Other hunters let me know how much he liked killing. We kill Fallen all the time, but Ragnar would hunt down their females and young. Effective, but ... yeah. There was a twist to him that never sat right with me."

So it hadn't been just the Eye and my own instincts telling me that Ragnar was bad news. He'd needed someone to stop him.

"I wish it hadn't been me," I said.

Cayde nodded. "Killing Guardians is bad news. Nobody wants to do it. But sometimes it has to be done. We carry the stains so other people can stay innocent."

I still didn't feel any better about what I'd done. But for the first time, I began to think that I could make peace with having to dispense justice.

* * *

The Vanguard decreed that I had acted in self-defense, and that I deserved commendation instead of punishment. I didn't want their official thanks, didn't want the little medal in a box they gave me. I went back to work on the Tower and avoided everyone. I might have to kill any one of them next. And I could. The Light inside me was as deadly a weapon as anything that fired bullets.

The only thing that made it bearable was Zero. She looked after me as she had when I was sick, reminding me to eat, sleep, and shower. We went back to my apartment, which had partially burned in the war, and scavenged my clothes and video games. We took them to a little tent I'd set up in a quiet back corner of the Tower walk, and she and I played together like old times.

Spring passed into summer, and the rebuilding was endless. One day, Lord Saladin came to the Tower, part of a fleet of ships bringing supplies from Felwinter Peak. I labored and sweated along with other Guardians and humans to unload the precious cargo - food supplies and construction materials we so badly needed.

A few nights later, I was eating my scanty dinner, sitting on crates near the railing, and realized that the guy sitting next to me was Lord Saladin. He was in plain clothes and wasn't eating anything, just sitting there looking out at the City and the busted-up Traveler.

At first, I was too intimidated to say anything. The only Guardian stories I'd ever liked had been about the Iron Lords, how they established rule of law in a world that lacked it, and how they'd single-handedly figured out the powers and classes Guardians still used today. Only Saladin was still alive, of that generation, as far I knew. But eventually, my desperation to talk to someone - anyone - about my problem was too much.

"Sir?" I said. "Lord Saladin?"

The burly, dark-skinned man turned to me. "Eh?"

"Sir, I'm a new Guardian," I said, "and ... I have some questions."

He smiled paternally. "Ask all you like."

I launched into the story, and before I knew it, I'd told him everything - how I'd become a Guardian without Light, and met other Guardians who wanted to pin their crimes on me, just because I was new and naive. And how I'd killed them, and it haunted me.

"So, sir," I finished, "how do I move on from this? How can I be a good Guardian, when I - I know I could kill again?"

Saladin sighed and leaned against a crate. He didn't speak or look at me for a while. We gazed at the lights coming on in the City in the dusk.

"Son," he said at last, "let me ask you a question. If this Ragnar stood before us right now, would you strike him down again?"

"No," I said. "I'd try to incapacitate him and take him to the Vanguard."

"Why didn't you do that, then?"

"Because ..." I hesitated. "There was no Vanguard. And he was going to kill me. And he had just killed his own ghost."

Saladin nodded. "The ghost. Therein lies the kicker, and I think you've overlooked it."

"Sir?"

He turned to face me, resting his elbows on his knees. "Guardian, Ghosts are sacred to us. Felwinter knew that. He had laws for ghosts as well as for Risen. He treated them like people. Convicted them of crimes. You witnessed a Ghost attempting to stand up to its Guardian, the way Felwinter ordered Ghosts to. By his laws, any Risen who rejected that sort of negotiation forfeited their lives. You didn't know it, but you stood with the Iron Lords that day."

A hot lump suddenly closed up my throat. I couldn't have spoken if I'd wanted to. Here was someone who had been there - who understood. The agony of guilt inside me finally relaxed a little. I'd found solidarity.

Saladin watched me for a moment. "Son, if you're willing, I'd like to invite you to Felwinter Peak for training. There's a lot of work to do if we're to help the City survive the winter. I could use more hands. And I could train you as one of my Young Wolves. Haven't had one in a while now. To tell you the truth, it's been a little lonely."

I couldn't speak, but I nodded vigorously and shook his hand. Saladin smiled. He understood.

* * *

Zero

* * *

We've been at the Iron Temple on Felwinter Peak for three months, now. Max is doing so much better. For a while, there, his depression was so dark that I was frightened. But Lord Saladin has helped him in ways I never could.

For one thing, he's worked Max like a mule, and Max has loved it. I guess, after being sick so long, then suddenly having the strength of the Light, Max needed an outlet. He's gone out and cut down trees, tore apart old vehicles for parts, hauled grain from the farms at the foot of the mountain - anything Saladin asks. Max is also good at book work, since that was his New Monarchy job. He updates the inventory spreadsheets every night.

Then there's what I think of as the counseling sessions. Saladin takes Max through the Iron Temple and talks about the various Iron Lords and their ideals. They talk philosophy and theology. Max has chewed on his guilt for three months, and is finally finding the strength to forgive himself and move on.

It's helped that we had to fight Fallen to protect the farms and village a couple of times. Max has been training hard to use his powers and become a Hunter. He used those skills to save innocent families from bloodthirsty aliens. After that, his guilt seemed to fade, like he understood his role better. It helped that the conflict was clear-cut. Good verses evil. No troublesome gray areas, like murderous Guardians. It was what Max needed.

We're returning to the Tower with the next convoy, but Max doesn't want to stay there. "My training's not finished," he told me. "I'm going to win the Wolf title if it takes years."

"I doubt it will take years," I told him. "You've come so far already."

We were sitting on a ledge high up in the Iron Temple, watching the sun set over the valley beyond. A chilly breeze stirred. Max drew me close and tucked me into his warm cloak, leaving it open just enough so I could watch the sunset.

"Is an Iron Lord supposed to dote on their ghost the way you do?" I said.

He looked down at me and grinned. He'd grown the beginnings of a beard and was trying to shape it into a sort of goatee. It made him look older, more mature. I loved it.

"Nobody has to know," Max said. "But for the record, Saladin's ghost wears a shell with diamonds on it. So take that how you want."

Max had gifted me a dark blue shell with the outline of a howling wolf done in silver. We looked good together, and we both knew it.

"Well," I said, "I've doted on you since we met. And you weren't even my Guardian yet."

He rocked me a little in the fold of his cloak. "I don't deserve you, Zero. After all I put you through."

"Nobody deserves a friend," I said. "A friend comes along when you least expect and didn't ask. And suddenly you realize that someone else is as strange as you are, and you laugh, and you're friends."

Max grinned and his eyelids got a little pink. "And friends go and get caught up in mysteries together."

"Not a lot of those out here," I said. "Saladin runs a tight ship."

"Only the City has that much drama," Max agreed. "Someday, I'd like to catch up with Paul Johansson and help him solve cases."

Paul, our friend in the Cormorant Blade, had helped evacuate the City districts nearby and defended the transports as they escaped. He'd taken over maintaining law and order as the City was being rebuilt, and likely wouldn't have time for detective work for a while.

I snuggled a little deeper into Max's cloak. "Whatever we wind up doing, it'll be fine as long as we're together."

"Yes, it will," Max said, and hugged me.

* * *

The end


End file.
